TeleSur English on Police Violence and State Repression in Catalonia

This is another short video from TeleSur English. TeleSur, I think from its logo is a South American broadcaster, which covers issues relating to the continent, Central America and the Caribbean. As so much of the continent was colonized by the Spanish, it’s only natural that the station should also be covering the terrible events now unfolding in Catalonia.

The video’s just under two minutes long, and show the police charging the protestors and those Catalans, wishing to exercise their democratic right to vote. It also includes testimony from the protestors themselves, who states that the police charged them, and that grandparents, women and children were crying. The police also fired rubber bullets, and the video shows some of the wounds inflicted by them. They also forcibly broke into polling stations, burned and destroyed ballot boxes and arrested volunteers working there. The video states that this was after a vicious campaign by the Spanish government against the referendum campaign. The video ends by asking if this is the end of democracy in Europe?

That last is a good question. Mike has also put up an excellent article this evening commenting on the brutality and assault on democracy this constitutes. He makes the point that this is how an undemocratic government, like May’s, hangs on to power. May is rigging parliament so that the Tories dominate parliamentary committees, despite the fact that they have lost their majority. And you do have to wonder if May wouldn’t send in the cops and the army to behave excellently like this against the Scots or Welsh if they dared to vote against remaining in Britain. And this isn’t even a question regarding Northern Ireland. The province has been under military policing during the terrorism and violence that the Good Friday Peace Agreement was supposed to put an end to. Of course May would have no qualms about sending in the army and the cops if the people of Ulster looked like they wanted to leave Britain. And that would include the whole people of the Six Counties, not just Roman Catholics and Nationalists, if the Northern Irish people felt that they would be better off being independent or negotiating some kind of deal to join Eire, rather than chance their economy and prosperity with a Britain outside the EU.

I don’t think it’s the end of democracy in Europe. But it is extremely ominous.

Tags: Armed Forces, Catalonia, Conservatives, Good Friday Agreement, Parliamentary Committees, Police, Polling Stations, Telesur, TeleSur English, Theresa May