[D66] The arrest of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont:Another step toward a police state in Europe

[Henk Vreekamp]

Hmm, Ernst,
In de jaren 1970s en 1980s werkte ik samen met een Spanje-komitee (tegen 
Franco en zijn aanvankelijk zeer conservatieve opvolgers). Ik heb de 
verandering van anti-Franco Basken in separatistische Basken op een 
afstandje mogen observeren (lees het nieuwe boek van Aramburu over de 
letterlijk jarenlange moordende tweedracht in Baskenland: "Vaderland"!). Een 
actuele herhaling rond Barcelona bezie ik met grote argwaan. De separatisten 
spelen met vuur. De rol van de rooms-conservatieve Rajoy is overigens in 
deze formeel-juridisch (en dat heeft staatsrechtelijke ook zo z'n 
bezwaren) - hij zou politiek actiever moeten optreden, juist om gewapend 
geweld te voorkomen. Totnutoe is de terughoudende reactie van Rutte dus 
verstandig. Bedenk dat bijna de helft van de Catalaanse inwoners pro-eenheid 
met Spanje is...
hv,u
--------------

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- 
From: Ernst Debets
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2018 1:27 PM
To: 'informele D66 discussielijst'
Subject: Re: [D66] The arrest of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont:Another 
step toward a police state in Europe

Rajoy krijgt onderhand de schijn dat hij de reincarnatie van Franco is. Hij 
probeert uiteraard Catalonië vast te houden omdat dat gebied nou juist een 
zeer belangrijke economische pijler is waar Spanje op rust. Je moet 
uiteraard niet de kip met de gouden eieren willen slachten. Ik snap ook niet 
dat Rutte en Pechtold, de ALDE broeders van Puigdemont (Catalan European 
Democratic Party (PDECat) is a member of the liberal parliamentary group in 
the European Parliament. ) niet fel stelling nemen tegen de manier waarop 
Rajoy de Catelanen behandelt.
Of geldt hier hetzelfde als bij onze oosterburen: " As always, the policies 
of the German ruling class are determined by its geopolitical and economic 
interests."

Ernst Debets/
Zaandijk

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: D66 <d66-bounces at tuxtown.net> Namens A.O.
Verzonden: donderdag 29 maart 2018 11:34
Aan: informele D66 discussielijst <d66 at tuxtown.net>
Onderwerp: [D66] The arrest of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont: Another 
step toward a police state in Europe

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/27/pers-m27.html

The arrest of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont: Another step toward a 
police state in Europe
27 March 2018

The arrest of former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont in Germany 
is a major step toward the development of a police state in Europe. The 
Europe-wide police-state structures, which emerged under the pretext of 
combatting terrorism and cracking down on refugees, are now being deployed 
against political opponents.

Puigdemont’s arrest was conducted based on a European arrest warrant.
These warrants were introduced in 2004 to simplify the extradition process 
between EU member states following the elimination of internal border 
controls. They were allegedly aimed at combatting terrorism, gangs, people 
trafficking, the drugs trade, and other serious criminal offences.

Ever since, the police, intelligence services and judiciaries in the EU 
member states have intensified their cooperation. Puigdemont’s arrest was 
planned by Spanish intelligence, which had been following him across Europe 
with 10 to 12 agents. It was done in close consultation with Germany’s 
Federal Criminal Police Office, which received information from Spanish 
intelligence about Puigdemont’s car and route ahead of time and organized 
the arrest.

The charges against Puigdemont are as hypocritical as they are fraudulent. 
His “crime” consists of nothing more than advancing the demand—which has a 
long political history—for the separation of Catalonia from Spain. He has 
neither called for nor threatened violence to achieve this goal. The Catalan 
separatists have relied on peaceful and democratic means: elections, 
parliamentary motions, and demonstrations.

The German state accepts the claim of the right-wing regime in Madrid that 
the advocacy of separatism is a crime. But in the case of Yugoslavia, 
Germany ruthlessly pursued the breakup of that state in the 1990s, with 
catastrophic results. As always, the policies of the German ruling class are 
determined by its geopolitical and economic interests.

Puigdemont and 24 other Catalan politicians face charges of “rebellion,”
which carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. The corresponding 
paragraph in Germany’s Criminal Code, which could potentially serve as the 
basis for Puigdemont’s extradition, punishes “high treason against the 
federation” with a sentence of between 10 years and life imprisonment.

Both criminal offences presuppose the use of violence, and Spanish judge 
Pablo Llarena resorted to completely specious arguments to claim the 
Catalonian leader was guilty of violent activities. He accused Puigdemont, 
absurdly, of accepting that there was a risk of violence during protests 
against raids on Catalan ministries by Spanish security forces.

The German government, which never tires of denouncing Russia, Turkey, and 
other countries for arbitrary judicial proceedings, is backing the legal 
farce of Puigdemont’s extradition. German government spokesman Stefan 
Seibert stated that the arrest was carried out on the basis of German law 
and the regulations related to the European arrest warrant.
Spain is a democratic, constitutional state, he claimed.

A German law professor rushed to Seibert’s defence. Martin Heger, who is 
chair of the department of European criminal law at Berlin’s Humboldt 
University, told Spiegel Online, “In principle, the legal situation is
straightforward: When a European arrest warrant is presented, it will be 
carried out, so long as the prerequisites for it have been fulfilled ...
So it is clear: Germany has to extradite Puigdemont.”

Puigdemont is a pro-capitalist bourgeois politician, whose Catalan European 
Democratic Party (PDECat) is a member of the liberal parliamentary group in 
the European Parliament. When a pro-capitalist, democratically-elected 
politician is pursued in the EU for high treason, it is not hard to imagine 
how the leaders of mass protests or a general strike calling capitalist rule 
into question would be treated.

This is the more fundamental reason for the erection of a European police 
state, and the close collaboration between Berlin and Madrid. The goal is to 
intimidate and smother all forms of opposition, resistance and protest.

Europe is on the brink of bitter class battles. Social relations are at the 
breaking point. Hardly any European country has a stable government.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy leads a minority government that 
confronts mass social protests. Hundreds of thousands of retirees took to 
the streets last Saturday alone. On the same day, France was shaken by 
widespread protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s labour market 
reforms. In Germany, the new instalment of the Grand Coalition, which came 
to power only after a six-month crisis, no longer has a majority in the 
polls.

In the UK, tens of thousands of university lecturers are engaged in a bitter 
contract dispute. And the US is in the midst of a strike wave by teachers 
throughout the country, while millions of students took to the streets last 
week to protest the violence that dominates American society.

Europe’s rulers are responding to this growth of social and political 
opposition by moving ever more openly toward authoritarian and dictatorial 
forms of rule.

The crackdown on political opposition takes perhaps its most direct form in 
the drive toward Internet censorship, which is being driven by a series of 
laws throughout Europe and its member states making technology companies 
criminally liable for the posting of “violent” and “extremist”
content on their services.

While the EU is increasingly breaking apart, its member governments 
cooperate ever more closely on the issue of building a police state.

Last Friday, Germany’s Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer pledged to 
strengthen police-state measures in his first speech to parliament since 
taking office. “At the European level, we must do all we can to integrate 
the various databases so that our intelligence agencies can act to achieve 
their goals more swiftly,” he said. The arrest of Puigdemont two days later 
shows what Seehofer meant by this.

The cooperation between Berlin and Madrid in the Puigdemont case recalls the 
darkest period in European history. German authorities have arrested a 
Catalan prime minister once before, in 1940. Hitler’s secret police, the 
Gestapo, detained Lluis Companys, who fled into French exile in 1936 after 
General Franco, with German support, crushed the Spanish revolution and 
established his bloody dictatorship. They extradited Companys to Madrid, 
where he was tortured, sentenced to death and executed.

The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World 
Socialist Web Site condemn Puigdemont’s arrest and demand his immediate 
release. His targeting by the German authorities is a warning. The only way 
to prevent the establishment of a police state, and a relapse into 
militarism and war, is through the development of a socialist movement to 
unite the European and international working class in the struggle against 
social inequality, dictatorship and war.

Peter Schwarz
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