The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested two more minors, 16 years old, allegedly linked to the death of a man in Manresa on September 1st. These two arrests are in addition to the two arrests the police already made on the same day of the incident, two minors aged 15 and 16 with criminal records, one of whom was on supervised release after having spent time in a juvenile detention center for attempted homicide.

Absence of paternal figures, lack of supervision during childhood, school absenteeism, difficulty in emotional management, impulsivity, low commitment to society. These were some of the conclusions of the psychologists who had treated the two minors, aged 15 and 16, arrested last week in Manresa for the fatal stabbing of a 45-year-old man. Both had criminal records and both, as ARA has been able to reconstruct from various sources, have had a troubled childhood and have caused constant conflicts in the centers where they were educated, from which this complex situation had been repeatedly warned about.

The two teenagers aged fifteen and sixteen arrested this week for allegedly killing a man in Manresa during the main festival had already been arrested before for cases unrelated to this week's fatal stabbing in the Bages region. In fact, one of them—the fifteen-year-old—had been interned until a few weeks ago as a precautionary measure in a case in which he is being investigated for a robbery with violence and attempted homicide in April, and at the time of the crime he was on supervised release, according to sources familiar with the case who spoke to ARA.

The murder of a man in Manresa by two minors has been one of the prominent news stories on TV3's Telenotícies. Tuesday's news programs, both the midday and evening ones, echoed the story. This was also the case on Wednesday, when the minors had already been arrested and a minute of silence had been observed in the city. The news included statements from councilor Parlon specifying that the detainees were "Catalans born in Catalonia" and the speech of the mayor of Manresa emphasizing the seriousness of this violence perpetrated by adolescents. The case, moreover, gained relevance because far-right sectors had distorted the facts to spread hate speech, circulating false data about the origin of the detainees. Curiously, Spanish news outlets, however, have not echoed the news from Manresa. Neither La 1 de TVE's Telediarios, nor Antena3 Noticias, nor Informativos Telecinco, neither in Tuesday's nor Wednesday's editions, have reported on these events. Not a peep. Instead, it has been reported on L’informatiu de TVE, the edition broadcast as a disconnection for Catalonia. We must therefore assume that the murder has been interpreted in a "local" or "regional" context. That, allegedly, two minors armed with knives kill a man in the street is not significant enough for any criterion of newsworthiness. Not even for the youth of the alleged perpetrators nor for the biased interpretation with political intentions. In recent weeks, Spanish news outlets have been absolutely focused on the Ceuta migratory crisis. But there is a detail that demonstrates the media's disregard for the Manresa case. While ignoring the death of a man stabbed by two minors in Manresa, Telecinco and Antena 3 did report in different editions on the stabbing of two people in New York, one of whom died. They broadcasted the harrowing images of the arrest where the perpetrator was shot dead by the police. On Telecinco, for example, they also reported on a knife-point robbery in a bazaar in Los Palacios, Seville, a town with less than half the population of Manresa. They also highlighted the arrest of a robber in Castilleja de la Cuesta, a town of 17,000 inhabitants. What do these cases have in common? The mere existence of images of the events. In both the New York case and the two other Sevillian locations, video cameras captured the violent scenes. Striking images, with a sordid and furtive visual quality that adds a morbid component. The seriousness of the Manresa case, which allows for social reflection on violence, is underestimated in Spain, likely due to a lack of visual spectacularity. There are no images of the assault. However, perhaps it would have been different if the detained minors had been unaccompanied migrant minors. Then, perhaps some Spanish channels would have paid more attention.

Humanly, policially, and politically, it is understandable that the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, wanted to deny that the alleged perpetrators of the Manresa homicide are unaccompanied minors. Humanly, to prevent a falsehood from spreading. Policially, because many people forget—or do not know—that at the end of last year, the Interior Department began including the nationality of detainees in its official crime reports, precisely for the sake of transparency. And politically, because the falsehood serves the interests of those who live electorally off the stigma against immigrants.

There has been a crime in Manresa, which leaves two children without a father and a whole town devastated. Carles Vilajosana, the victim, was a much-loved neighbour in Castellnou de Bages and throughout the region, as he had worked at the Mas de Sant Iscle winery, and everyone knew him. In these circumstances, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, wanted to emphasize that "the two minors detained for the crime were born in Catalonia", after politicians and youtubers had insinuated or stated that the arrested were immigrant minors.

The judge ordered this Wednesday evening the internment in a closed regime for the two minors arrested for the violent death of a man in Manresa. For one of the adolescents, in addition, therapeutic treatment has been decreed. Both are charged with a crime of homicide. The juvenile prosecutor had already requested this afternoon as a precautionary measure the admission of the two arrested individuals.

In broad daylight and on the city promenade, in September 2023, several young people threw tables and chairs at each other in a pitched battle that ended up being a kind of turning point in Manresa. That episode caused several residents to take to the streets to demand measures against "insecurity" in the street from the municipal government, led by the republican Marc Aloy. That demonstration, however, was already born divided, and some groups directly distanced themselves from it so as not to link insecurity with immigration. This is, in fact, the fragile balance in which Manresa, a city of 80,000 inhabitants with almost 22% of people from abroad, has been moving for some years.

Serious racist attack in Manresa. The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested a man and a woman for assaulting a group of Muslim women while insulting them with racist comments and against their religion. It happened this Sunday around eight in the evening on Baixada dels Drets, a central point in the capital of Bages.

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have arrested eight young people, seven of them minors, for assault and public disorder at a mosque in Manresa. The youths belong to the city's Maghrebi community and, according to police sources, were criticizing worshippers for attending the mosque or for observing Ramadan. They are believed to be young people who were upset with these religious practices and reacted violently. However, the Mossos describe the incident as more a matter of antisocial behavior and vandalism than a religious confrontation. The oldest of the group is 18 years old.

"Manresa cannot have an open door to the ocean and welcome everyone indiscriminately and without control". "We have to be able to say enough". "Manresa is saturated". "We have imported a model of delinquency from the Third World". "It cannot be that Catalonia has been the country that in the last 25 years has received the most immigration". "Manresa must be a more prosperous, safer, more ours, more Catalan city". The first three sentences were said by Ramon Bacardit (Junts). The last three by Sergi Perramon ("Avanç Nacionalista).

Just over a month. That's how long it took Junts and Avanç Nacionalista to reach an agreement to run in coalition in Manresa's municipal elections. The pact was made public this Friday and officially signed at noon at the Celler del Bages, with the presence of the two leaders of the parties: Junts member Ramon Bacardit and far-right councilor Sergi Perramon. This is the first municipal coalition between Carles Puigdemont's party and a force openly opposed to immigration. Both sides were keen to reach an agreement as soon as possible to form an alternative to the ERC government a year before the elections. Now it remains to be seen whether representatives of the former PDECat will also join, with whom they are also in talks, even though they are part of the current municipal coalition government with ERC and the PSC. Bacardit is expected to be the mayoral candidate on the unified list, with Perramon as number two, in a coalition that will operate under the Junts umbrella, bearing in mind that for Carles Puigdemont's party this was a red line and that Avanç Nacionalista is a new local training, which should collect signatures to be able to put up a fight.

Tempting offer from Aliança Catalana in the heart of Catalonia. And doubly so. And rejected once again. Sílvia Orriols' party proposed to Manresa councilor, Sergi Perramon, to be the candidate in the capital of Bages. If he accepted the proposal, Perramon would also be the candidate for Barcelona in the next Catalan elections. The councilor, who had run for the Front Nacional de Catalunya (FNC), from which Orriols split, has once again rejected the offer, as he himself confirmed to ARA. "Jordi Coma called me on behalf of the president on the last day of the year and I rejected it," he says, referring to the party's advisor in Parliament. The leadership has declined to confirm the information, when questioned by this newspaper.

Fifty kilometers to reach a trial in Manresa: that's the distance that defendants, victims, witnesses, and lawyers from the Osona region have had to travel for more than six years. It wasn't until this week that criminal trials resumed in Vic, with a temporary solution in a basement on Ronda Camprodon, meaning those involved in the proceedings no longer need to travel to the Manresa courthouse, where public transport connections don't always make it easy to arrive on time. "Many lawyers have had to act as taxi drivers for their clients," explains Rogeli Montoliu, dean of the Vic Bar Association. "It's like a doctor who lives in Vic and has to go to the Hospital Clínic to perform surgery and have to take the patient in his car because the patient is also from Vic and has no other way to get there," criticizes Montoliu, who is also president of the Catalan Bar Council (Cicac). The lawyer asserts that over the years it has been "very common" for a hearing to be postponed because someone was unable to attend, and in this regard, he emphasizes that these trials—which deal with crimes such as theft, robbery, or traffic offenses—often involve "people with limited financial resources" who lack the means to attend. The trials now being held in Vic include crimes committed throughout the Osona region, and in fact, hearings have been scheduled in the new courtroom for the past three months to ensure it can be used normally from day one, according to sources at the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). However, they add that for some time there will still be some cases tried in Manresa because they were already scheduled there and because with only one courtroom it would have been impossible to handle all the pending hearings.

The same thing that happened in Terrassa has happened in Sant Vicenç de Castellet. The same pattern, the same modus operandi: Carles Sallés Ballbé would put his hand under the swimsuits of children between the ages of 7 and 11 while they were swimming in the pool and touch them inappropriately. In Terrassa, he was caught and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in 2016 by the Provincial Court of Barcelona. This spring, he was released from prison and settled in Sant Vicenç de Castellet. Just a few months later, while still on parole, he was caught again: six families reported him on August 28 for sexually abusing girls between the ages of 7 and 9.

Nationalist Advance. This is the name of the new party that Sergi Perramon, a councilor from the Nationalist Group, presented this afternoon at the El Voilà Café-Theater in anticipation of the upcoming municipal elections. The councilor, who distanced himself from the National Front of Catalonia (FNC) a year after the elections, asserts that he wants to create a "center-right" platform to become the leading force or at least be able to form a government. Shunning party labels and remaining unbranded, Perramon aims to form a grand coalition with Aliança Catalana, Junts, or Impulsem, but one that will not involve any absorption. The fundamental debate, however, will be whether this new party operates under the umbrella of these existing formations. "We must be generous," the spokesperson repeatedly emphasizes, noting that the political space he represents is currently "too fragmented" to aspire to unseat ERC. It's no surprise that up to three lists could be presented if there's no agreement between Avenç, Aliança, and the FNC, which, taking advantage of its electoral rights, could also put up a fight. The capital of the Bages region is one of the strongholds of the far right. In the last elections to the Catalan Parliament, Aliança and Vox together garnered 16% of the vote.

Only five months into the mandate, some two thousand people gathered in the center of Manresa to protest incivility and crime following a mass brawl between young people of foreign origin. Almost two years later, a similar incident has not occurred again, and things are calming down, although the capital of Bages is the 23rd city in the country in terms of crime. This sense of insecurity has catapulted the far right in Manresa and, in turn, has caused Junts to toughen its rhetoric, as it has done in other towns where inequalities bring social problems to the surface. The figures speak for themselves.

Agents from the Civil Guard, the National Police, and Customs Surveillance have dismantled a criminal organization that sexually exploited women in vulnerable situations throughout Spain. In a joint operation, police forces freed 162 victims in different parts of Spain and made around thirty arrests. Although the group was based in the Valencian Community, it had begun to expand to other territories, including Catalonia.

Throughout the office it is represented in a multitude of sizes, materials and colors. The vice president of Tous, Rosa Tous, puts for theCompanies Along with a giant esparto grass version of the bear that has become the quintessential icon of the Catalan jewelry brand. Founded by his grandfather over 100 years ago, the Manresa-based company has surpassed €500 million in turnover for the first time and aims to continue strengthening its brand worldwide.

In front of the current political context of disenchantment and decline of the independence movement, municipalism is joining forces to try to refloat the path of national sovereignty. The city councils of Girona, Manresa, and Vic, together with the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), are calling on all elected officials from the country's local councils to participate in the first National Meeting of Elected Officials of Catalonia on May 31st in the Girona capital: a day of debate and reflection that aims to establish...