The Resurgence of Cataluya! Breaking news

One and a half million Catalans caused the complete collapse of the centre of Barcelona yesterday, Saturday 10^th July, in a demonstration without precedents. It was against the sentence made public on Friday last week by the Spanish Constitutional Court which severely cut back on Catalan rights as contained in the Catalan Statute passed both in the Catalan and Spanish Parliaments in 2005. The sentence, amongst other things, establishes that the Catalan language is to be placed in an clearly inferior position to Spanish, outrules the possibilitiy of Catalan justice institutions and ensures that the Catalan economy continues entirely in Spanish hands, granting no respite for the 10% PIB drain from Catalonia to Spain that is yearly sapping the Catalan economy.

The demonstration was coordinated by the Catalanist association Òmnium Cultural with the support of  over1500 other associations and parties.

Bearing the banner heading the vast demonstration, which completely filled three kilometres of the city’s widest avenues, were six presidents and ex presidents of the Catalan Government and Parliament from the period that these institutions were recovered, after Franco’s 40-year ban, in 1980.

This demonstration has meant a huge step forward for the independentist positions in line with recent surveys that show that figures for those Catalans favouring this option are neck and neck with those still favouring staying in Spain.

The demonstration was called under the slogans “We are a nation” and “We decide”, in answer to the Constitutional Court’s elimination of 14 articles in the Statute and the interpretation of 27 more, with the inclusion of eight references in the text to the “indissoluble unity of Spain”.

This demonstration culminates the campaign carried out since September last year in which pro-independence polls have been held in over 400 Catalan cities and towns in which over 580,000 Catalans have voted in favour of independence.

Today's Madrid press has only given partial and minor coverage to the event.

If you need more information on this question, please get in touch with us. You can see photographs of the demonstration at the link:

http://www.lluisbrunet.cat/decidim