Spanish State: Freedom for Catalan Political Prisoners!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 15 October 2019, www.thecommunists.net
1. The Spanish Supreme Court has imposed draconian sentences against nine leaders of the Catalan independence movement. They had played a central role in organising a democratic referendum on Catalan independence on 1 October 2017 which resulted in a clear majority voting in favour of independence. For this “crime” they have been sentenced to jail terms of between nine and 13 years!
2. In response spontaneous mass protest erupted all over Catalunya. Thousands rallied at the entrance of Barcelona’s international airport. This resulted in the cancellation of over 100 flights and the delay of many others. Protesters in Girona burned tyres on the train tracks, shutting the high-speed connection between Barcelona and France. Regional railways and roads were blocked at several places. A three-day student strike has been called for 16 October. The Spanish police try to suppress these protests with utmost brutality. The Comitès de Defensa de la República (Committees for the Defence of the Republic), a leading grassroots movement for independence, rightly condemned the state repression and called for mass resistance: “It’s time to rise up against the authoritarian fascism of the Spanish state and its accomplices.”
3. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) sends its warmest greetings to the courageous jailed activists and their families and friends! We strongly welcome the determined reaction of the Catalan workers and youth. The draconian sentences demonstrate once more the utterly anti-democratic and reactionary nature of the post-Francoist state, the so-called 1978 regime. This only confirms why the Catalan people are right to desire separation from this reactionary state!
4. The RCIT considers the Spanish state as a reactionary capitalist monarchy which exploits the workers and popular masses and which oppresses a number of national minorities (among them the Catalans and the Basques). This state cannot be reformed and has to be smashed by a socialist revolution of the working class and the oppressed. We fully support the right of national minorities for self-determination. In cases where it is clear that the majority of a discriminated or oppressed nation wishes an independent state (as it is the case in Catalunya) we fully support this demand.
5. The RCIT urges the activists to ignore the calls of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leaders for “calm” and “respect for the law”. What is necessary now is the organization of a general strike for the immediate release of the Catalan political prisoners. The whole region must be brought to a halt by mass demonstrations and blockades. The Spanish and the international workers movement and left must show its support for the most fundamental democratic rights of the Catalan people!
* Free the Catalan political prisoners!
* For mass mobilizations, blockades and a general strike in Catalunya!
* For solidarity actions in the Spanish State and internationally!
* Support Catalunya’s Independence! For a Catalan Workers Republic!
* For a voluntary socialist confederation of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula! For the United Socialist States of Europe!
International Bureau of the RCIT
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For the RCIT’s analysis of Catalonia’s struggle for independence, we refer readers to numerous documents which are collected in a special sub-page on the RCIT’s website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/collection-of-articles-on-catalunya-s-independence-struggle/