Thread by @joethebrew

HEY JOURNALISTS!

Want to write a super interesting news story?

Check out the newly-released English translations of Spanish court documents justifying the imprisonment of Catalan independence leaders: internationaltrialwatch.org/en/homepage/

Don't know where to get started? I'll help you out..

First, some context...

-In October 2017, the Catalan government held an independence referendum.
-Spanish Police used violence to try to stop the vote. This has been meticulously documented: catmemoria.cat/en/
-Spain jailed the elected government which organized the vote.

So, a State uses violence against its citizens and... who gets charged with a violent crime?

The police? The government?

No. The organizers of the referendum.

But how does the State justify pre-trial prison for the "crime" of organizing a vote?

This is where things get weird.

Since the Catalan independence leaders never used, nor endorsed, nor condoned violence, Spanish Judges instead make the Orwellian argument that opposition to the State is itself a potentially violent act.

It's hard to charge an explicitly pacifist political movement with violent rebellion. So, the Spanish Judges got creative. For example, they consider the independence movement's "initimdatingly large presence" in the charges.

"Intimidatingly large" as evidence for a crime?!

How to reconcile the upside-down narrative of Catalan independentists as violent rebels with what international journalists were reporting at the time (police beating up voters)?

Apparently the independence movement had an exceptional ability to "pressure" journalists...

The court documents go through their "you made me hit you" climax when independence leaders are accused of "preferring to order the [referendum] process to continue" despite the Spanish State having sent 6,000 police officers to stop it.

In an effort to portray the independence movement as violent (so as to justify the charge of rebellion), the word "possibility" and "probability" are referenced repeatedly. As in, things were "probably" going to be violent, therefore the accused were violent.

What's sad is how frequently demonstrations and mobilisations are mentioned as "evidence" of the "crime".

Clearly, from the Judges' point of view, political activism is perceived as a threat, rather than an indication of a healthy, functioning democracy.

The court documents are most Orwellian when they delve into psychology. Despite never using or condoning violence, independence leaders "must have supported the possibility that the process would end up resorting to the instrumental use of force."

The Judges consider that carrying out a vote made violence "unavoidable".

Using the term "unavoidable violence" is factually incorrect and ethically irresponsible. Violence is always avoidable.

Spain did not have to react violently to a referendum.

The documents read as if the criminal charge (violent rebellion) had been decided previously, and then a judge was tasked with narrating events so as to make them fit the crime.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the philosophical explanation of violence. Try to understand this.

Eventually, this legal case will collapse under the weight of its own falsehoods, either in Madrid (Spanish Supreme Court) or Strasbourg (European Court of Human Rights).

But in the mean time, there are people in prison on absurd charges.

Journalists, do your job: speak up!