In a historic ruling, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has overturned the conviction handed down by the Supreme Court against several protesters from the “Aturem el Parlament” (Stop the Parliament) mobilization of 2011. The ruling represents a blow to the argument of magistrate Manuel Marchena regarding the fact that, even though the accused did not commit specific violent physical acts, they helped to create, with their mere presence and gestures, an intimidating atmosphere and hindered the functioning of the Catalan chamber.This is the doctrine of "environmental violence" that Marchena himself was in charge of transferring to the Procés sentence. According to this doctrine, even if an individual protester does not commit explicit acts of physical aggression, their participation and integration into a hostile collective mass contributes to creating an intimidating and coercive atmosphere capable of paralyzing or altering the functioning of institutions. To me, this invention by the judge from the Canary Islands seemed at the time as creative as the "stage fright" that Jorge Valdano spoke of in the 1980s, referring to the intimidating atmosphere of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium. Of course, with very different and painful consequences. Not in vain, with this convoluted argument, the Supreme Court overturned in 2015 the previous ruling of the National Court by which the eighteen defendants of the siege of the Parliament were acquitted, arguing that they were exercising their right to peaceful protest against social cuts. Eight of them were sentenced to three years in prison.Now, the Strasbourg Court has decided that criminally punishing protesters based on a general intimidating atmosphere violated the fundamental rights of assembly, demonstration, and freedom of expression, in addition to highlighting that the convicted individuals were not attributed in the sentence any individual violent action or direct incitement to violence. That is to say, the mere fact of shouting slogans or raising arms in a protest, which needless to say always generates disturbances, does not justify disproportionate prison sentences.The relevant point is that this ruling sets a precedent for Spanish courts in the sense of preventing them from using abstract concepts to deactivate the right to protest or peaceful civil disobedience. It is a pity that this same assessment was not made by the ECHR when in November 2025 it reviewed and ruled on the 2019 Procés sentence, in which Marchena recycled this same dogmatic scheme to justify, in a delusional way, the existence of the insurrectional climate necessary to commit the crime of sedition, still in force at that time.

I do not know if we are different people, or the same ones in a different skin, than those from almost a decade ago, in this corner of the world. I know that our children, who were small then, have embraced other causes, kinder ones, than being among the losers, the unpleasant ones, those who do not stop poking and complaining, like woodworms. The house cats, well-fed and pampered, are very nice. The stray ones, those who have nothing and beg all day, or steal, exasperate us. We are the stray ones.

Her Instagram profile is represented by a photo of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, a film that she assures me she has seen more than seventeen times. Karanezi began to stand out by commenting on current events through tweets and short videos, and has ended up being a scriptwriter for La competència and a member of Nexe Nacional, a group of left-wing nationalists born after the Procés.How did you become politicized?

Any policy driven by nostalgia is doomed to failure. We observe the temptation of nostalgia throughout Europe, including in Catalonia. It is a form of escape from reality and is not an attitude exclusive to far-right formations. The paradox is that this drift reaches us when the present demands greater capacity to rethink changes, to prevent the future from becoming only threat and fear. And it is time to rethink because it is time to rebuild. The hour of a reconstruction policy arrives. Without solemnity, but with commitment, with a vocation to conjure the mixture of irrationalism and fatalism that fertilizes the ground for anti-politics and, in turn, for populist and reactionary options.We are experiencing collective discouragement and democratic malaise that call for a combination of self-criticism, listening, and reform. Self-criticism of some premises that have underpinned basic policies to date, listening to citizens who express various forms of disaffection towards institutions, and decisive reform in those areas where problems demand a change of focus, not just the allocation of more resources. From here, we will have to assume the risk of reconstruction, especially on two overlapping fronts.First of all, a national reconstruction, indispensable after the stage of the sovereignist process, which ended badly as long as it is not possible to ask again —without baton blows— what citizenship wants. But today's Catalonia is not that of the post-civil war, nor that of the eighties, nor even that of the 92 Games or the events of 2017. Three issues that are part of the daily agenda clearly show this: housing, economic model, and language. The world of Jordi Pujol and Pasqual Maragall —to name the two most important Catalan leaders of the second half of the 20th century— no longer exists, nor will it return. It remains basic to assume the framework of "Catalonia, one people", but this cannot be used to stop analyzing the great social transformations that challenge us.

In their desperation to obtain the support that will allow them to oust Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa, the Popular Party is now playing their particular tites, tites with Junts. PP leaders are aware that their policy regarding Catalonia has consisted not only of frontal ultranationalism (enriched by the radioactive energy of Vox, a partner and, in fact, a split from the PP itself), but also of a Catalanophobic populism that is profoundly divisive and, often, directly civil-war-like. Aware that these are not very good credentials to ask for Junts' votes, they have decided to resort to selective amnesia. The mantra is to look to the future and not "to the past", a remote place that, in the PP, they place between 2017 and 2018. This is what the "bad" and "good" spokespersons have said and repeated these days — the slimy Miguel Tellado and the wolf in sheep's clothing Borja Sémper — and also the curious anti-leader Núñez Feijóo, completely engrossed in his role as a man who can't find his glasses. piolins, the savage beatings by the police mob on October 1st, the más dura será la caída” from prosecutor Maza, the approval of Article 155 and the dismantling of Catalan self-government institutions one morning in the Senate, the farcical trial against the leaders of the Procés, with Rajoy and several ministers and high-ranking officials — as well as dozens of police officers — giving false testimony, the police and judicial persecution against Catalan independentists; all of this was, according to Sémper, "the useful and reasonable position that a state party must have".It is opportune, in any case, that the PP proposes this exercise of interested amnesia precisely when the Statute was approved twenty years ago. What times! This must be prehistory already, but the old people in the area still remember the PP's petition tables all over Spain asking for "a little signature against the Catalans”, the accusations —even then— of coup and terrorism, some not very veiled calls for military intervention, an avalanche of insults and of fakes xenophobic and supremacist against "Catalans" from media outlets controlled by the Spanish right and, needless to say, the lawsuit to the Constitutional Court that was resolved with the ruling that laminated a Statute voted by citizens and endorsed by the Parliament of Catalonia and the Spanish Courts, in a true —this one— judicial coup d'état that continues to this day with all the noise and fury we know well.In summary, the PP's hate speech against Catalonia and everything related to it has somewhat old roots and is a bit difficult to hide just because they are now willing to literally do anything for Junts' votes. On the Catalan side, it is urgent to get rid of the bullshit (whether Josep Pla or whoever said it) according to which there is nothing more similar to a right-wing Spaniard than a left-wing Spaniard. It's a joke to blow off steam at a supper, but above all it's a boomerang that always returns and makes a deeper and deeper cut.

One of the worst insults one can receive in this country is that of “processist”. We were so fed up with the political episode that culminated in October 2017. For Spaniards, the Process was a seditious and irresponsible exercise. For independence supporters, it was a display of improvisation and cowardice. Both sides are united in their stubborn determination to discredit the protagonists of that adventure. This coincidence in harsh criticism contrasts with the very different price that the two sides have paid for it On the independence side, there has been a considerable washout, due to repression and personal wear and tear. Changes in politics are logical; the subsequent public lynching by the most irascible sector of the sovereignist bases themselves is not so much. All in all, it seems evident to me that the punishment (real and reputational) suffered by the repressed has been much more severe than that of the repressors. It can be argued that grassroots independence showed itself extremely solidarity at least until the Tsunami Democràtic (which also failed) and the Urquinaona incidents; afterwards, the dispute between the symbolic fanfare of exile and the pactist turn of ERC spread disillusionment. Finally, the idea prevailed that the leaders of the Process, by focusing on the anti-repression struggle (which resulted in pardons and amnesty), were helping to bury – once again – the sovereignist dispute. The two main protagonists of the Process – Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras – remain at the forefront. The first has been in exile for nine years; the second spent four years in prison and remains disqualified. Both are waiting for the amnesty, wrested with forceps from the PSOE government, to overcome the obstacles posed by the vindictive Spanish judiciary. However great the mistakes they made in 2017, they have paid for them in full. Both want a last dance, an opportunity to redeem themselves.

L'Informe Fènix presented this month, which warns of the impoverishment of Catalans due to our way of growing (and which confirms that our growth style is now a kind of malignant tumor), must henceforth form the basis of all political, social, civic or business action. It is a serious, grave, urgent, truth-filled wake-up call, because we are all feeling it on our skin and we don't need much proof (even though until now no one had given us the diagnosis and prognosis). The decline is totally perceptible, uncontainable, both in the political and social spheres and, therefore, inevitably, this ends up having its economic effects. We have lost our drive, partly for external reasons, but also for internal reasons and our own renunciations (or neglects), and the result is that Catalonia now seems to be unable to count on either an efficient ruling class or a business fabric that reaches where the government cannot. Until now, one thing had always compensated for the other. Now, on the other hand, the ground is barren, the landscape is a dry meadow with a cow squeezed to the point of hemorrhage, and, in the spiritual aspect, the demoralization is as general and clamorous as it is apparently inconsolable. Distributing blame is necessary, yes, but above all it will be necessary to distribute blame from now on, and specifically towards those who do not react.

The new-old pedagogy is textile. Polyester, cotton, wool, linen, silk… But also influenced by other currents: cellulose, rubber, polyethylene, PVC… There are parents who opt for this type of education. As good parents, they think about the future of their offspring: Spain must shelter Catalonia.

We read in ARA

I have seen Icarus: The Week in FlamesThe pro-Spanish documentary about the October 2019 protests in Barcelona has sparked outrage (a real firestorm on Twitter) from some fervent patriots who have called for a boycott of the Filmin platform, which is offering it until the 31st of this month. The documentary in question is so inept and laughable, so crude and tacky, that it's hard to believe anyone could be offended by such nonsense. Within Filmin's extensive and splendid catalog (a godsend for anyone who loves cinema, which I have no intention of giving up for anything, least of all for any patriotic appeal), Icarus: The Week in Flames It would fit, if at all, in the section dedicated to the most extravagant and outlandish B-movies, alongside the hilarious Troma productions and horror films with ketchup blood. The Trial of the Process, with Magistrate Marchena presiding over a blatantly dysfunctional court, was the cause of the Urquinaona riot, and it also marked the point at which the state's dirty secrets overflowed, still tainting everything today. But that's one thing, and quite another is a documentary that seems written and directed by the characters in... Martínez, the fascistI have no idea what this is doing among Filmin's releases this week, but given the platform's track record, I refuse to give it any more importance. In any case, read on. Mònica Planas's criticism of the pieceAnd you will find – as always – a sound analysis.

You might remember the series Riot policeA Movistar+ police drama that delved into the professional and domestic struggles of a group of men from the Spanish police's riot control units (UIP). In the final minute of the last episode, the protagonists arrived in Barcelona to quell the protests against the verdict in the Trials trial. One of the characters was giving a lecture to a rookie colleague:Relax, it's like anything else. You just need a little firmness and a little common sense. And if you throw in a little swagger... you've got it.But reality was less epic.

Killing the father figure is important for life in general, but for politics it is absolutely necessary. Politics is a collective discussion about the nature of good and what we must do to achieve it, and change begins when the feeling spreads that the old vision that explained it to us is running out and a new one is needed. Any political renewal is always a "transvaluation of values," as Nietzsche said; someone who points out that the emperor has no clothes, that what everyone says is no longer tenable, and that where no one is looking is precisely where we should focus our attention. The charismatic leader acts like the modern artist, who denounces the fossilization of the old canon and proposes a new form that challenges it from top to bottom—a scandal. In the feverish moment of cultural revelation, the break with the past anoints the breaker with an aura of irresistible novelty, and then the marginal takes center stage and begins to rise like foam.

On the day ARA was founded, November 28, 2010, José Montilla was president and Catalonia was reeling from the Constitutional Court's ruling that had curtailed the Statute of Autonomy. But by the end of the day, there was a new president. in pectoreArtur Mas, and a change in the political cycle was anticipated after seven years of left-wing tripartite governments. The CiU electoral program included a promise to negotiate a kind of economic agreement with Madrid, which was called fiscal pactFifteen years later, it can be said that we are in the same place, awaiting negotiations to improve the Generalitat's finances. But now no one is telling him. fiscal pact but unique financingAnd the one negotiating it isn't CiU, which no longer exists, but ERC. Reading this, someone might think that nothing relevant has happened in these 15 years, but in reality, they have been the most turbulent and exciting years in Catalan politics, perhaps since the Republican era. That's the great paradox of those 15 years.

Two-year disqualification, fine, and compensation for Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner. condemnation of the Attorney General of the StateÁlvaro García Ortiz arrived at the Supreme Court this Thursday, the 50th anniversary of Franco's death, unexpectedly. He arrived even earlier than anticipated, and in fact, the sentence had not yet been drafted. Who are the five judges of the criminal division who made this decision? And who are the two dissenting judges? We examine the profiles of a court with a conservative majority, and the names associated with the judicialization of the Process of National Reorganization abound.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favor of the Spanish justice system for restricting the political rights of Jordi Sánchez, Jordi Turull, and Oriol Junqueras following their imprisonment for the October 1st referendum and the December 2017 elections. The Strasbourg court's decision, supported by Supreme Court Justice Pablo Llarena, found that the three leaders violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and its protocols. The ruling aligns with the Spanish Constitutional Court's assessment that there was sufficient evidence to suspect serious crimes. This is despite the fact that, as the UN Human Rights Committee stated, the leaders had called on citizens to demonstrate peacefully, and isolated acts of violence could not be attributed to them.

From the pacified Consell de Cent street, Jordi Amat explains in his new book The Battles of Barcelona: Cultural Imaginaries of a City in Dispute There is a difficult-to-resolve relationship between the Catalan nation and its capital. In these debates, many pro-independence commentators have participated, and consistently so, although Amat seems to have ignored us (or so he pretends). I would say that, among all of Amat's accurate assertions (Barcelona is indeed a "political body without a head"), the most unfortunate misstep is his obsession with sparing the independence movement. This is a constant in Barcelona's friendly and smiling "social democracy" when faced with the evidence that the Process was the most popular, daring, progressive, participatory, electrifying, creative, and internationalizing event (and even the one with the greatest social consensus) that Barcelona has seen since the Olympic Games. The difference is that no decent pro-independence supporter would ever underestimate the importance of the Olympic Games. They may criticize aspects and consequences, but never treat it condescendingly. As we know, even within the establishment, there are still stratified classes.

A general consensus is emerging that genocide is being committed in Gaza. Okay. And a month ago, what was it? Because we've been denouncing the atrocities and excesses committed by Israel in this conflict for months. What happens when the classification of the thing is elevated to a new terminology? Well, the effect is twofold: on the one hand, it automatically garners more sympathy from international public opinion (the famous battle of the story), and, on the other, it enters a different legal classification that has aggravated penal effects. If Russia were committing genocide in Ukraine, the demonstrations against Putin would undoubtedly have rekindled throughout Europe (instead of this shameful paralysis). At first, Hitler also limited himself to invasions, when the Holocaust was not yet known (or reported): you start by invading territories, or in other words, not respecting the rights of peoples, and you end up not respecting life. Genocide is a change of screen. A change of size. What's more, if you say it is, you automatically seem pro-Palestinian; if you say it isn't, you're pro-Zionist. Labels label us.

Together maintains the threat to Pedro Sánchez and includes Salvador Illa in the equation. The party led by Carles Puigdemont now links the Catalan and Spanish legislatures and seeks to force Salvador Illa to ratify the Brussels agreement, which they reached. the junteros directly with the PSOEIf the president of the Generalitat opposes it, the spokesperson for the Junts group in the Parliament, Mònica Sales, warned in a press conference from Waterloo that "there will be no further path" in the relationship between the regional government and the Socialists, both in Madrid and Barcelona.

Eight years after the events of October 2017, there is still no clear consensus on what the so-called Process was. This period began with the 2012 Diada, the first organized by the ANC, and can officially be considered over on May 12, 2024, when the majority of the independence movement loses. During this period, with varying intensity, the debate over independence and the self-determination referendum dominated the Catalan and, to some extent, Spanish political agendas. There is no doubt that the culminating moment of the Process was October 1, 2017, when more than two million people participated in a referendum on independence, thus defying the ban imposed by the Spanish courts.

Cristóbal Montoro has been a powerful man within the Spanish state. He served twice as Minister of Finance, in the governments of Aznar and Rajoy, at times accumulating more important functions, such as the Civil Service and the Relations with Territorial Administrations, that is, everything related to public employees, autonomous regions, and local authorities. Now we discover, or rather confirm, that in addition to being a powerful man, he has also been a shadowy figure.