Spanish Government Desperate
The Catalan regional government has accused the Spanish authorities of behaving like Turkey, China and North Korea by blocking websites designed to help people vote in Sunday’s independence referendum.
Over the past week the Spanish government has stepped up its efforts to stop the unilateral vote by deploying thousands of extra police officers to Catalonia and taking control of the region’s finances.
It insists the referendum is illegal and a clear violation of the Spanish constitution.
As well as arresting 14 Catalan government officials and seizing almost 10m ballot papers, police and the courts have been taking down websites connected to the referendum.
On Monday police summoned 17 people for questioning over the development of web platforms related to the vote.
A police spokesman told Agence France-Presse the 17 were suspected of “disseminating a website for people to participate in a referendum declared illegal by the constitutional court”. He said they were alleged to have “made it easy for people to get documents … to organise the plebiscite”.
Catalonia’s regional president, Carles Puigdemont, has tweeted links to websites telling people where to vote on Sunday, but the posts were removed after a court ordered that sites used to share such information be blocked.
On Monday evening the website of the large pro-independence group the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) was taken down by Spain’s Guardia Civil. It reappeared at a different address within an hour.
“We received no notification whatsoever from the Guardia Civil,” said an ANC spokesman. “It shows that the government cares more about stopping people from voting than they do about preserving freedoms in Spain.”
The post Spanish Government Desperate appeared first on LewRockwell.
Leave a Reply