The analysis of Antoni Bassas

When emptying an eye is an “absolutely perfect” action

They fire 17 rubber bullets from a distance of 14 metres, without making the ball bounce on the ground, and he says it was an "absolutely perfect intervention"?

Miniature column
17/09/2026 - 11:34 h.
3 min

The President of the Generalitat traveled to Extremadura yesterday to celebrate the National Day there. He said he was going there to present and share an “open, inclusive, and solidary Catalonia.” I wonder when it stopped being open, inclusive, and solidary. Or does open, inclusive, and solidary mean Spanish? Who is the President saying all this to? To Madrid? To the King? To the Ibex-35? To PSOE voters in Catalonia, so they don’t vote for Abascal? Because Illa will leave, and the Extremaduran government will continue to instill the same old prejudices in Extremadurans. Notice that yesterday, to argue that she is against the new financing system, the Extremaduran President, María Guardiola, said that she wants to prevent a new wave of Extremaduran migration from repeating itself. I wonder what 43 years of autonomy has done for Extremadura if we are still like this.As you know, on these occasions the word that is repeated the most is solidarity. And after decades of seeing the fiscal effort we make in Catalonia, one wonders where the solidarity with the Catalans is, among whom there are thousands and thousands of children and grandchildren of Extremadurans, who have to take Rodalies every day, or the AP-7, or have to queue on healthcare waiting lists. I insist, good neighborliness is always good, but it must be based on respect and truth.And speaking of defending the Catalans for the services they pay the State for but which the State does not provide them, let's talk about Rodalies. The cable theft at the Estació de França, in Barcelona, caused delays on the R2 south line. Man, when they can already steal the cable at the Estació de França itself, it's not that you have your guard down, but rather that you have no guard at all, and that goes for Adif. It is the sixth theft in 10 days. And since a piece of news is better understood alongside another:A young woman creates a system to alert about Renfe and Adif delays. It is a system invented by Marina Castellano, a 24-year-old engineer from Badalona, which warns of Rodalies incidents up to three-quarters of an hour before the official channels. Nothing more needs to be said, right? It is a system that detects, verifies, and processes thousands of messages on social networks about breakdowns. Castellano is a student of mathematical engineering in data science at Pompeu Fabra University, and when she had to approach her final degree project (TFG), the idea of improving Rodalies information immediately came to mind "to make life a little easier for users". If a student can do it, why don't those who are paid to do it do it? Because they don't think about the people, that is, about the service they provide.

And yesterday we told you that we would follow the trial of the four national police officers who blinded Roger Español. Well, the head of the National Police riot squad, José Miguel Ruiz Iguzquiza, who worked during the October 1st operation under the code name Marte, said in his statement that they did not open any disciplinary file on the officers because, after reviewing the images, they assessed that it had been "an absolutely perfect intervention".

And he said that the images of the incident were insufficient to identify the shooter and that the force "did not have enough money" to investigate it. They fire 17 rubber bullets, which were prohibited in Catalonia, at a distance of 14 meters, and they fire directly, without making the ball bounce on the ground, and he says it was "an absolutely perfect intervention"? It was perfect for taking out an eye.

Good morning.

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