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Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#2
Someone made a point recently that the past 50 years really have been a golden age of democracy (possibly the only 50 in history)

That during the 19C there was much more semi-democracy with strong authoritarian governments in Europe, cracking down on what we would call democracy (1816,1848 etc)

The point was that it is fairly easy to slip back.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#4

Example of the crackdown on voters. They seem completely nonviolent to me, even in the face of a disproportionate response. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/914427797753430017 https://twitter.com/ZabMustefa/status/914406611375894528

It seems like even the local firefighters and police stepped in:

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/914472762030379012

https://twitter.com/catalannews/status/914453409453023232

What a violent mess.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#6

Example of the crackdown on voters. They seem completely nonviolent to me, even in the face of a disproportionate response. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/914427797753430017 https://twitter.com/ZabMustefa/status/914406611375894528

The woman was not injured by police: she had an accident with the stairs going to vote.

There are videos with the attack to the police. At the end, there are violent people with the pacifist voters and not professional policemen too.

EDIT: Evidence asked, here it is https://youtu.be/wmLTRluQm94

EDIT 2: I was asked for source about the women and people manipulating pictures. Two sources here: https://twitter.com/arb149/status/914401352230621184/video/1 http://www.larazon.es/espana/difunden-en-twitter-imagenes-fa...

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#8

Someone made a point recently that the past 50 years really have been a golden age of democracy (possibly the only 50 in history) That during the 19C there was much more semi-democracy with strong authoritarian governments in Europe, cracking down on what we would call democracy (1816,1848 etc) The point was that it is fairly easy to slip back.

Fairism is not something you build a stable society with. The individual (usually wealthy) vs majority was the canary.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#9
post #6

Example of the crackdown on voters. They seem completely nonviolent to me, even in the face of a disproportionate response. https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/914427797753430017 https://twitter.com/ZabMustefa/status/914406611375894528

The woman was not injured by police: she had an accident with the stairs going to vote. There are videos with the attack to the police. At the end, there are violent people with the pacifist voters and not professional policemen too. EDIT: Evidence asked, here it is https://youtu.be/wmLTRluQm94 EDIT 2: I was asked for source about the women and people manipulating pictures. Two sources here: https://twitter.com/arb14…

I've seen no evidence of violent people attacking police.

Edit: well that is evidence - not a huge surprise that things have now escalated when you have an armed force shutting down an election.

Re: Catalan referendum: 'Hundreds injured' in Catalan clashes

#10

Someone made a point recently that the past 50 years really have been a golden age of democracy (possibly the only 50 in history) That during the 19C there was much more semi-democracy with strong authoritarian governments in Europe, cracking down on what we would call democracy (1816,1848 etc) The point was that it is fairly easy to slip back.

I feel sorry for the injured in this Catalan referendum, but in my opinion this referendum has nothing to do with democracy.

First of all a country's constitution is sacrosanct and that constitution not only gives the people their power to vote, but also says that the country's territory is indivisible.

If the Catalan people want to change that, then the referendum should involve all of Spain's citizens, having as much rights at this point over Catalonia, as the people living there.

I've said it repeatedly here, so here it is again: I'm getting the feeling that people don't know what a democracy is.

A democracy isn't only about the freedom to vote. What happened in Turkey for example isn't democracy, even if a majority is in support of the current administration. The right to vote means nothing without liberal freedoms or without the indivisibility of the territory.

In other words, you can't have an "independence" referendum without involving all the citizens. That's not democracy, but a war declaration.

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