Last week, the arrest of the crew of the flotilla arriving in Gaza with humanitarian aid from the Israeli government was the spark that lit all the fires. All over Europe, where there had been demonstrations of rejection of the genocide committed by the Netanyahu government for weeks, people took to the streets following the impulse that arises within each of them, and this is how large collective demonstrations usually arise.

The eighth anniversary of October 1st has passed amidst the normalizing silence of socialism, the chronic convalescence of the pro-independence parties that were the protagonists of 2017, nostalgia for what we were, the malaise of a lost opportunity, and the reality of a world at war that now relativizes all those years filled with effort.

From Cornellà del Terri, where former president Carles Puigdemont voted on 1-O, Junts held its event this Tuesday night to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the October 1 referendum. Under the slogan "Committed to 1-O," the Junts members demanded "the validity of the referendum mandate" after the independence movement lost its majority in the Catalan Parliament and have called for "finishing the job." To this end, Puigdemont called for "protection" of the formula that made 1-O possible and claimed three "ingredients" that, in his opinion, made it possible: unity, transversality—without considering "what those on our side think, what their origins are, or what religion they profess"—and a vision for the future. A message that Puigdemont repeated this Wednesday in a message on X: "It is imperative that we preserve the formula of October 1, because it is the one that leads to victory." Puigdemont defended October 1st as a "historical heritage" and the "foundation stone for building a future of freedom."

The cases of the Banco Sabadell, the La Caixa Foundation and its holding company Criteria, the Molins cement factory Or Laboratorios Ordes, which has returned its registered office to Catalonia after leaving in the wake of the 1-O referendum, is not a one-off; there have been more movements. For the first time, concrete data is available: 681 of the companies that moved their registered offices out of Catalonia at the end of 2017 and during 2018 have already returned. This is evident from the latest report on registered office movements by Informa BD, part of the Cesce group, corresponding to the first quarter of 2025. ~BK_SLT_L~ also shows the return of Catalan companies that left as a result of 1-O. It is true that among those that have not yet returned, there are some that are part of the Ibex 35, such as CaixaBank (although in this case it has returned to its main shareholder, Criteria), Colonial, or Naturgy. In fact, the 681 companies that have returned to Catalonia represent 7.39% of the 9,221 that have left since the fourth quarter of 2017, according to Informa.

Òmnium Cultural, the ANC and Irídia move to annul the agreement the amnesty granted to the 46 national police officers prosecuted for the violence against the voters of the 1-O referendum in Barcelona. The organizations announced this Thursday the filing of several appeals before the Supreme Court to withdraw the pardon for the officers, which was upheld by Barcelona's 7th Court and later confirmed by the Barcelona Court of Appeals. The filings before the high court accuse the police officers of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and emphasize that these are crimes that cannot be protected under the amnesty law.

The repression on October 1st has had many victims, but some who have not suffered either prison or exile have gone more unnoticed. Among them are the nine teachers from the El Palacio Institute in San Andrés de la Barca who were singled out and accused of harassing the children of Civil Guards in the days following the referendum. The accusation could not be sustained and the case was closed, but their name remains tainted. If you search for them on Google, you'll find news stories about the accusations against them and a piece byThe World –which made the front page– where their names and surnames were listed, along with the subject they taught and a photograph of their faces. The court case went nowhere, but the public accusations are still online, accessible to anyone with a couple of clicks on Google. Now they are demanding that the digital trail of the closed case be erased, that the harm done to them be repaired, and that a plan be drawn up to protect teachers from prosecution for what they say in the classroom.

Every September for the past seven years, the nine teachers from the El Palacio Institute in San Andrés de la Barca who were singled out on October 1st relive the legal ordeal they suffered when they were accused of abusing the children of Civil Guards. The reason? If new students search for them on Google, the first results that appear are those of the legal case against them, which has since been closed. Also, the article where The World published his name, surname and photographs and that ended up on a cover that the then Cs leader, Albert Rivera, used to point them out as "separatist teachers." In November 2024 The last judicial file opened against the teachers was closed, who lament the "personal strain" and "enormous suffering" over these years, where they have felt alone and without support from either the Generalitat or the City Council. Now they want justice on two fronts: on the one hand, erasing the "infamous" digital footprint of the accusations against them on the internet and, on the other, achieving moral reparation for the damage that includes a plan to protect teachers from persecution for what they express in the classroom.

Does anyone know what happened to us? Does anyone know exactly what happened in the months before and immediately after the 1-O referendum? It's not that there's a lack of stories that describe, with little or no precision, the most obvious, most visible, most incontrovertible material facts. Nor are there any shortages of simplistic interpretations, conspiratorial approximations, and maliciously biased and self-exculpatory versions. But, of all this, what remains in our collective memory—and in our lack of memory—is a broken mirror of interpretations. A mess that has not only fragmented its memory but is also made up of pieces that don't even fit together. Reconstruction, for now, seems impossible.

The Barcelona Court has sent to trial the four National Police officers prosecuted for a crime of assault in the operation on October 1st in which Roger Español lost an eye due to the impact of a rubber bullet. The court has concluded that the injuries during the charges at the Escola Ramon Llull in Barcelona are not covered by the amnesty law and, instead, it does apply to Español, who was accused of a crime of attacking the officers.

The political year 2021-2022, now over, was free of elections, and the three main pro-independence parties used this lull to rethink their respective roadmaps. Republican Left of Catalonia approved its new political strategy in March at a national conference; Together for Catalonia (JxCat) did so even more recently at its July congress. The People's Unity Candidacy (CUP) has not yet finished its congress, but, as advanced by ARA, its national secretariat is already working with a draft that gives a heavy hint of where they will be heading. Comparing all three proposals, the institutional independence movement does not give any sign of being able to resume a certain unitary course after the holidays. Neither in the field of the Independence bid, nor in the field of day-to-day politics.

The Public Prosecutor's Office will maintains its offensive against the Catalan Independence Bid in the Court of Auditors, but it is reducing its harshness. The lawsuit filed on Wednesday against 35 former Catalan government officials over the 2017 referendum and the Generalitat's foreign action between 2011 and 2017 reduces the damages claimed back to €3.4m. It is a third of the €9m for which the defendants were forced to present bail. Even so, although the state attorney general, Dolores Delgado, appointed Manuel Martín-Granizo, of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors, the public prosecutor's office will still be part of the accusation, alongside Societat Civil Catalana, which a few days ago already presented its accusation.

"It includes statements that are loaded with assessments and opinions [...] which, as is already known, cannot function as an empirical element of judgement, because they lack value and truth and cannot be subject to verification." This is one of the attacks that Constitutional Court magistrate Juan Ramón Sáez sent Supreme Court president Manuel Marchena and the court that convicted nine pro-independence leaders of sedition. In his dissenting vote on the ruling against Oriol Junqueras's and Raül Romeva's appeals, which he also applies to Joaquim Forn and Dolors Bassa, the judge who acquitted Catalan police major Josep Lluís Trapero in Spain's National Court accuses the Supreme Court of not having correctly proven that in 2017 sedition occurred on September 20 and October 1 nor that those involved participated in it. Sáez believes that the conviction violated the right to the presumption of innocence and the right to criminal legality, among others.

Former Catalan Minister for Agriculture Meritxell Serret will not go to prison over the 2017 referendum. Her new defence –led by lawyer Íñigo Iruin– has succeeded in its strategy, based on the outcome of the trial of the Independence Bid leaders. The prosecutions (Prosecutor's Office, State Attorney's Office and Vox) have presented their briefs before Supreme Court's criminal chamber decides on a hearing, and all three have thrown out accusations of embezzlement of public funds. Instead, they focus on a crime of disobedience, which does not carry prison sentences. In addition, if the same logic is followed as with the former members of the Catalan Parliament's Bureau, Serret would be tried in Catalonia

On 1 October 2017, Catalans won "the right to have an independent state constituted in the form of a Republic". The then president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, had no hesitation in validating the referendum results despite warnings from the Constitutional Court, police interventions and aggressions, the absence of an Electoral Commission (threatened by the Spanish courts) and the participation of 43% of the census. All pro-independence forces agreed: 1-O was a valid referendum and, in Puigdemont's words, the institutions had the "duty" to implement it.

"Dear friends, if you see this video it is because the state apparatus has decided to limit my freedom". "Unfortunately the judge's decision has been to deprive us of our freedom, an act that does not respond to any principle of justice but rather attempts to frighten and punish us". On October 16th, 2017, Spain's High Court imprisoned the leaders of Òmnium and ANC, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, and Spain once again had Catalan political prisoners. Despite having the lowest sentence of all those who were tried in the Supreme Court, the Jordis are, in fact, those who have spent the most time behind bars: 1,346 days, or what is the same, 3 years, 8 months and 1 week between the prisons of Soto del Real and Lledoners (in addition to visiting others during transfers). They have served 41% of the sentence of 9 years in prison that will remain on their records.

While a stage of dialogue between the Generalitat and the Spanish government of uncertain prognosis opens, the repression against the independence movement does not stop. The next case that is about to break out is one of the Court of Auditors is investigating the external action of the Generalitat between 2011 and 2017. The inclusion of the former Minister Andreu Mas-Colell among the 41 investigated has aroused a wave of solidarity in the last week and has helped to popularize the case. The first important date of this cause will be the 29th and 30th June. The lawyers of all the defendants will parade through the Court of Auditors to find out exactly what their clients are accused of and they will know the most important thing: the bail they will have to pay, which is expected to be in the millions. Those being investigated, from the ex Presidents Mas and Puigdemont to ex Ministers such as Junqueras and Romeva, delegates abroad and various senior officials, face a possible seizure of assets if they cannot make the payment.

Jordi Matas, Marc Marsal, Tània Verge, Marta Alsina and Josep Pagès will sit on Wednesday in the courtroom to be tried for the alleged crimes of disobedience and usurpation of functions after having been part of the Electoral Commission of the 1-O, and for which the prosecution asks them up to two years and nine months in prison. They will do so more than three years after the complaint filed by the Public Prosecutor's Office in which they were also accused of an alleged crime of embezzlement of public funds and that the judge dismissed when the instruction of the case ended. The trial of the five electoral commissioners has been postponed twice: in April last year it was suspended because of the pandemic and the oral hearing was set for last November, but it also ended up being postponed until March due to a positive case in the court number 11, where the hearing is made.