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.Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

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Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#41

Post by enriquto »

pera wrote: post #5
faragon wrote: post #2

.cat domains work properly, e.g. http://www.elperiodico.cat (tested from Barcelona) TL;DR: if you break the law, expect to get punished. The operators knew they were breaking the law, so involved sites in that domain were blocked. I.e. not a ".cat" generic blockage, but a specific action driven from a court.

I am trying to follow the situation in Catalonia, and I have one question: Is any kind of publication (done by private citizens) about the referendum actually illegal in Spain? Thanks.

it is illegal for privately owned publications to publish government calls for the referendum. They receive threatening letters asking them to comply, and many pulications thus refuse to publish these calls.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#42

Post by euyyn »

flyingfences wrote: post #37
euyyn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperbole much?

Not really. We're talking about a government using its violent abilities to censor dissent.

You're misinformed. What's being prevented is politicians paying this with public money. Basque and Catalan independence can be talked about freely, and has been talked about non-stop for many years, including in Congress.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#43

Post by sigotirandolas »

fabianmg wrote: post #4

Also, the didn't government didn't ruled the referendum illegal a constitutional COURT did it. And the detentions and search were ordered by a JUDGE from Barcelona that not long ago was awarded by the same Catalan government that now is criticizing him. Please read this to know the facts: https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/20/inenglish/1505917320_78...

I think that the Spanish Constitutional Court can be hardly considered independent of the Spanish government (most of its members have been historically appointed by the PP and the PSOE, the main Spanish parties, see [1]), so I don't think EFF's point here is invalid, even if clarifications are possible. Without knowing the specifics I'm inclined to think the decision by Barcelona's judge would be just a consequence of the Constitutional's Court ruling.

[1]: http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2015/08/20/55d4cbb646163f3c1c8b...: The Spanish Constitutional Court has 12 members, of which 4 are chosen by the congress, 4 are chosen by the senate, 2 are chosen by the governing party, and 2 by the "Consejo General del Poder Judicial".

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#44

Post by princekolt »

fabianmg wrote: post #10
princekolt wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the article? Or did you just jerk-reply in an effort to criticize people or the movement? > First, the content in question here is essentially political speech, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled as deserving of a higher level of protection than some other forms of speech. Even though the speech concerns a referendum that has been ruled illegal, the speech does not in itself pose any…

There's a system of law in Spain, is called the constitution. And the unilateral call for seccession or doing a referendum not allowed by the constitution or the courts is not allowed in any democracy. I'm in favor of a referendum so the catalans can decide if they want to be in Spain or not. But I'm not in favor of a unilateral decision.

No one here is discussing whether the referendum is legal or not, but you keep bringing this subject up. I am not Catalan or even Spanish, so I don't care a bit for it.

What's being argued here is that seizing the .cat TLD when a page registered in it was hosting "unlawful" content consists in pure and simple censorship. It would be similar to the US government taking control of the .com TLD because some website hosted on a .com domain is selling drugs. This is censorship.

To quote the article (which apparently you didn't read) again:

> Whether it's allegations of sedition or any other form of unlawful or controversial speech, domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains. If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#45

Post by pera »

faragon wrote: post #18
pera wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be in reference to the referendum website operated by the local government ( http://www.referendum.cat/ ), but I read several reports of private citizens with no affiliation with Catalonia's govt being raided by the police just for mirroring websites.

It is mirrored, without problem: https://onvotar.garantiespelreferendum.com/on-votar/index.ht... I don't know if the EFF is aware that the site has citizen personal information without permission. Who protects us as citizens against rebel regional government putting online private information against the rule of law?

The mirrors I checked didn't include that section (@1506104335). Instead they said:

> Shortly the Government will release the details on the polling stations to be used for the 1st October Referendum.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#46

Post by darthdev »

grimborg wrote: post #40
fabianmg wrote: post #8

The .cat domain was seized because the organization in charge of the domain IGNORED the orders issued by a JUDGE. So saying: > "If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet." Is simply put, bulshit. A court ordered taking down illegal…

Self determination is a human right. It is not unlawful, and a referendum about it isn’t either. If a certain law doesn’t allow for it, the law is wrong. Of course, Spain is also calling thoroughly pacific demonstrations “tumultuous” so that they can accuse politicians of sedition, so Spain clearly doesn’t care about truth and law.

Secession is in fact illegal in most of the world countries (if not all). Auto-determination is a right recognized in the UN for regions under colonial rule. Catalonia is not a region under colonial rule, and in fact the UN does not recognize the right of auto-determination of Catalonia (Source in Spanish from a newspaper from Catalonia: http://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20151030/54438498099/ba...).

Is the law is wrong? Maybe, in fact I might agree with the right to vote secession, but (IMHO) this needs to be done with great care, if not, any region of any state can call a vote for independence each time they disagree with the neighbors. In fact this kind of "blackmail" has been used consistently in Catalonia for years: "If you don't vote this bill, we will secede from Spain".

So, I don't think that the law that prohibit referendums for secession is completely nonsense. Exceptions of course can be made, but, is the case of Catalonia an exception? Before answer that, please, think if you have all the data to make that statement.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#47

Post by skwirl »

tbatchelli wrote: post #38
faragon wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spanish King has no actual power, we have a democratic monarchy.

Monarchies are not democratic. Unless I can vote the King, that is.

What if your elected representatives can vote to abolish the royalty?

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#48

Post by sigotirandolas »

Oletros wrote: post #26
fabianmg wrote: post #8

The .cat domain was seized because the organization in charge of the domain IGNORED the orders issued by a JUDGE. So saying: > "If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet." Is simply put, bulshit. A court ordered taking down illegal…

> The .cat domain was seized because the organization in charge of the domain IGNORED the orders issued by a JUDGE. What orders ignored? Do you have any link to newspapers? And, by the way, PuntCAT is a TLD register, they don't host any site. Do you know other case where the TLD registar has been seized? Domains are blocked via ISP's, the publisher or the hosting.

As far as I know, no newspaper has published anything that indicates that the puntCAT foundation ignored a clear order by a judge to censor a domain (though it is possible that they did). It's also possible that this is part of the open blanket investigation of anything the Catalan government does about the referendum.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#49

Post by tbatchelli »

skwirl wrote: post #47
tbatchelli wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monarchies are not democratic. Unless I can vote the King, that is.

What if your elected representatives can vote to abolish the royalty?

Good point. I believe you could.

Re: .Cat Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown

#50

Post by faragon »

enriquto wrote: post #39

It is interesting to note that Assange and Snowden seem very interested in the catalan issue these last days. https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/911226994846... https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/910888878948700160

According to El Pais (first Spanish generalist -i.e. non-sports- newspaper in audience), the Russian intelligence is behind the support to Catalan separatists, like before pushed for the Brexit, Trump, and Le Pen: https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/09/22/actualidad/1...
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