Puigdemont will not take part in commemoration of referendum organised by the ANC in Northern Catalonia
Court summons of former president in Sardinia prevents his presence at event where attendance of cabinet members who organised referendum is still uncertain
ANC is warming up for mobilisations to commemorate the Referendum this weekend. Some mobilisations will start this Friday at five in the afternoon with a political event in Illa, in northern Catalonia (currently part of France), to commemorate the important role of this area in the preparation of the referendum. Afterwards there will be a protest drive to Figueres. The president of the organisation, Elisenda Paluzie, has informed that former president Carles Puigdemont will not be able to attend because he has to appear in court on Monday in Sardinia after his arrest on Thursday in Alghero, although he had initially told RAC1 he would go. "He told us yesterday [Monday night] that he would not come because he has to prepare his defence and logistically it is also complicated to get from North Catalonia to Brussels," she explained.
Neither the president of ERC and then vice president of the Government, Oriol Junqueras, nor the rest of the members of Puigdemont's cabinet have yet confirmed their presence. "We hope that in the coming days they will confirm whether they will come or not," Paluzie said. Jordi Cuixart, president of Òmnium, and Jordi Gaseni, a representative of Towns for Independence, will attend and make speeches alongside Paluzie.
On that Friday, October 1, events will be held in the evening in Lleida, Dosrius, Sant Cebrià de Vallalta, Sabadell, Sant Joan de Vilatorrada and Roquetes, all towns affected by police repression during the vote. All these events will be the prelude to the three marches for freedom, in which you do not have to be registered to participate and which will be held on Saturday. The central march will leave from Vinaròs to La Ràpita to symbolically unite the Valencian Country with Catalonia. The Northern march will leave the pavilion of Sant Julià de Ramis, where the then president Carles Puigdemont voted and which also saw charges by the Guardia Civil, passing through Girona, stopping at some of the schools hardest hit by police violence, until reaching Aiguaviva, which became famous on 1-O because of police use of pepper spray. The last march, in the East, will leave from Fraga, in the Eastern strip, and go through Alcarràs, where the neighbours threw the police out on the day of the referendum, to conclude in Lleida.
"More than denounce repression, we want to vindicate the democratic struggle, people's resistance which allowed us to win on October 1st", Paluzie said, who again claimed the legacy of the referendum before criticising the negotiating table. In any case, the entity will organise conferences against repression on Saturday in different towns across the country with members who have been victims of repression since the eighties, such as independentistas that suffered operation Garzón, or the members of CDRs arrested in operation Judas and who have been summoned to declare this Tuesday. "The independence movement has always been repressed, it is not a new thing," Paluzie added.
On Sunday, the October 3rd platform, formed by the unions that promoted the general strike and which adhered to it, will hold a rally at twelve o'clock at the Plaça Cinc d'Oros in Vila de Gràcia, where a march organised by the ANC will end, after leaving Plaça Francesc Macià at half past ten. A whole series of acts to defend the validity of the referendum in a political context in which none of the three pro-independence parties claim their mandate but defend holding a new referendum, as CUP did this Tuesday.
