
Spain will prevent “digital republic” in Catalonia - charlysl
https://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/spain-takes-the-fight-against-independence-online
======
professorTuring
Tsunami Democratic is being investigated by Spanish authorities for promoting
public disorders and criminal activities. So Spain is making what is need to
to prevent criminal activities and (further) public disorders in Catalonia.

I don't know how some Catalonian citizens are letting themselves be influenced
by some corrupt politicians trying to enrich theirselves and avoid prison.

Check out democracy index in Spain (ranked 19th):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)
that is a better score than France, USA, Japan...

For people outside Spain, don't let yourself be fooled by the name of this
group. There is nothing democratic in "tsunami democratic".

~~~
yeahforsureman
Better stick to the facts rather than partisan polemics and distortion. They
made Github take down an app for _spreading information on and organizing
demonstrations_. These demonstrations have been by and large peaceful.

Like it or not, freedom of speech and assembly are fundamental and human
rights under the international commitments (ECHR, EU Fundamental Rights
Charter etc.) Spain has entered into. What this looks like, unfortunately, is
abusing their anti-terrorism laws to quell any protests. EU Commission should
take a hard look on Spain and probably launch a rule-of-law review.

~~~
professorTuring
> Like it or not, freedom of speech and assembly

Completely agree, but the investigation goes toward how this group is using
this assemblies to promote disorders, chaos and unlawful activities.

Each of the manifestation in Catalonia and in Madrid have been approved and we
have been able to see hundred of people fighting for their beliefs.

We will agree that promoting criminal activities doesn't help Catalonian
cause, and that should be investigated.

~~~
leereeves
> We will agree that promoting criminal activities doesn't help Catalonian
> cause, and that should be investigated.

The American Revolution was a criminal activity. Gandhi, Martin Luther King,
and Nelson Mandela were all deemed criminal and jailed. The protests in Hong
Kong right now are considered criminal activities.

So no, we will not agree that "promoting criminal activities doesn't help" a
cause.

I have no opinion on or interest in Catalonian independence, but if you want
to make a case against it, you'll need to try a different approach. It's
neither surprising nor informative when ruling governments call independence
movements criminal.

~~~
yiyus
But professorTuring did not say a cause, he said "Catalonian cause".

You are right in that promoting criminal activities can help a cause in very
specific cases, but I don't think is relevant here. Gandhi, MLK, etc had
legitimate reasons to break the law. Unless the Catalan independentist
movement can convince the international community that they also have a
legitimate reason, taking the law in their hands will not help them with their
objective.

By the way, the ruling government has never called the independence movement
criminal. It's perfectly legal to support independence, demonstrate, create,
fund and promote independentist political parties, try to change laws to
achieve self-determination... All that is perfectly legal in Spain. Disobeying
court orders or mishandling public funds, however, it is not legal in Spain or
any other country I know.

You ask for a different approach to make a case against Catalonian
independence, but I do not think this is fair. The burden of proof is not on
those who think they should not break the law, but in those who think they
should. If you want to form an opinion by yourself I suggest you to try to
find the reasons they have to want independence, from their own sources, but
crosschecking any "historical facts" you find. If after that you think they
have a legitimate reason to break the law, I'd like to hear it.

~~~
leereeves
I think the burden of proof in the discussion here is on those advancing a
position, but neither the allegations nor the evidence presented here are
convincing.

As I said I have no particular knowledge of or interest in the cause, I'm just
commenting on what I've read here. It seems to me that you and professorTuring
would like to convince us, and if so, you should present stronger evidence of
more serious crimes than disobeying the very government whose legitimacy the
independence movement is challenging.

~~~
yiyus
I told you how you could make your own opinion based on sources from the
independentist movement because I think that would be fairer than me trying to
convince you, but I perfectly understand that you don't want to spend your
whole day making a difficult research based on some vague indications so that
you can agree with my comment.

Some of the evidence you ask for include the mishandling of public funds, use
of personal data for their own benefit, or breaking the laws of their own
regional government such that they could pass new laws without the required
number of votes (because they only had a very tight majority). Plus disobeying
court orders, which is something that I insist can only be accepted in very
special circumstances and this is not one of them. I know these are not the
most serious crimes in history by any means, that's why they will be on the
street early next year.

But what I really hate about this is the image they spread of my country. I do
not mind if you sympathize with their movement, or even actively support it,
but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country
just for not letting them to do whatever they want ignoring their own laws and
a large portion of Catalan people. I do not mind if they want to fight for
independence, even if I find it terribly stupid, but I do not like feeling
insulted. And I constantly feel insulted by these people.

~~~
oska
> but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country

There's a very ugly side to Spain, just as there is a very ugly side to Japan,
France, the USA, Russia, Australia (my own country) and, I'm sure, the Catalan
independence movement too. There is an ugly side to any entity when it feels
its power is threatened and when it tries to suppress people's freedoms in
response.

Viewing this story from abroad and following it fairly well I have been
disgusted and sickened by certain actions taken by the Spanish government, the
corrupt Spanish judiciary, and the support shown by a percentage of the
Spanish people for those acts. So yes, my view of Spain as an authoritarian
country has strengthened based on real acts that have taken place. If you
don't want people to form that view then you should be doing what is necessary
in your country to call out that bad behaviour from your own side (presuming
you are for the Spanish state remaining in its present form). That is the
stance I take when I see my own country behaving badly. (It should also be the
stance that Catalan independence supporters should take against any bad
behaviour by their own movement too).

~~~
yiyus
Yes. You are totally right. The ugly side of Spain is quite big and very ugly.
We have to fight that. I have already written in other comments that I
absolutely reject the violence of the police during the referendum, for
example, and that all Spanish governments have made big mistakes with this
topic. We need reforms in our justice and electoral systems. We have horrible
politicians (Catalonia is not exception here). But Spain is not, by any
definition I know, an authoritarian country.

Moreover, I think we have to condemn the governments, the institutions, the
citizens with bad behavior (there are indeed many of them in both sides, and
therefore obviously many more in the non-indpendentist side). But when they
constantly talk about "Spain" as if it was something external to them and
refer to it as some banana republic, I feel insulted.

I quite often see the same thing happening with the USA. Sometimes people do
not criticize their administration, but they criticize the US, or "the
Americans". I would understand if the US people complained about that. I would
specially understand it if this criticism came from inside the US.

------
charlysl
OP here. Given that I posted this, I think I that I should share my opinion. I
am Spanish and against Catalonian independence, so hopelesly biased, I fear. I
want to keep this short and cut to what I believe is the essence of the
problem and how I think that all this will play out.

Given the power assymetry, hugely favourable to Spain, the only chance for
Catalonian independence is to get external support that will twist Spain's
arm. Here is where they are concentrating their efforts. They are trying this
on many fronts, some legal (EU court in Strasbourg), but mostly by trying to
keep the conflict in the front page of international media. This has worked
partially (by damaging Spain's image abroad), but are still very far from
their goals (UN resolution against Spain, EU warning, a big state or leader
putting this on their agenda). Part of this is to commit illegal but not quite
criminal acts, followed by an outcry and demonstrations when they invariably
get banned by Spain. This "digital republic" is just one of many such acts.
Spain is actually reacting with enormous restraint, given the propaganda
disaster of past mistakes like the riot police during the illegal referendum.

Unless forced by the international community, Spain will never allow
Catalonian independence, no matter how bad the internal situation, in my
opinion. This is a matter of national interest for Spain, an existential
threat, because it is one of the largest and richest regions, and because
others would follow (at least the Basques), and Spain would just cease to
exist.

Democracy is crucial, but, as with all complex problems, there are trade-offs
to be made, one can't aim for absolute democracy at the expense of everything
else, we should be careful with absolutes because they are not realistic. This
is not a matter of human rights, or Spain being a fascist state, franquist, or
a dictatorship. Spain has never been accused by other EU countries of being
undemocratic or not respecting human rights (or, at least, not worse than
other nations like France or USA).

~~~
repolfx
_Spain would just cease to exist._

Spain will cease to exist anyway given the trajectory of the EU. I don't know
why anyone in Spain seems to care about Catalonian independence. They seem to
want to immediately turn around and (re)join the EU, which is rapidly taking
over more and more areas of governmental policy. EU forbids different regions
from being more "competitive" than others (see their demands to the UK) and
implements large wealth transfers from richer to poorer areas, so, the rest of
Spain would end up being subsidised by Catalonia still.

If you care about Spain existing you should be campaigning for Spain to leave
the EU, rather than being distracted by whether Catalonia does or does not
possess whatever trivialities the EU leaves behind to member states as it
grows.

~~~
yiyus
> I don't know why anyone in Spain seems to care about Catalonian
> independence.

I never cared, but I do care about the image they are projecting of my country
(specially as someone living abroad). Moreover, they are doing great getting
the worse of everyone.

I never liked nationalism (including Spanish nationalism) and now it's worse
than ever. And I do not like anti-riot police, and I do not want my government
to close web sites, and I do not like to see Barcelona burning, and I do not
like the hate I see in the eyes of the independentists when they talk about
Spain, neither I like the hate I see in the eyes of some people when they talk
about the Catalan independentists or even about Catalonia. And I think I could
accept all this if it was for a good reason, but I think it is just stupid
nonsense (did we learn nothing from Brexit?). We should be moving forward
towards some kind of United States of Europe, and worrying about doing
something with all these people from Africa who keep coming here, not about
breaking apart and stupid flags. I get many questions from friends from all
over the world, and I do not know how to answer them, I just feel shame.
That's why I care. If tomorrow the Spanish state disappears and we just become
one big European country, I would not mind at all.

By the way, you are right about what would happen if an independent Catalonia
joint the EU. As a wealthy region, they would have to pay. However, why would
the EU allow to join a wealthy country who just decided to break their own
laws in order to not subsidize poorer regions?

~~~
repolfx
_If tomorrow the Spanish state disappears and we just become one big European
country, I would not mind at all._

I have unfortunate news for you.

People hating larger governmental forces that control them isn't something
weirdly unique to Spain or European nations. It is a part of the universal
human condition.

If all existing European nations were abolished and merged into a new EU
"country", guess what? The "nationalists" would hate the EU instead. This
already happens in fact. Why do you think Brexit won? It won because so many
people really don't like the EU and the way it works. The entire British
population was threatened _by its own government_ with ruination and told
anyone who voted Leave was thick and racist, and Leave still won. Imagine how
much bigger the result would have been if the government hadn't relied on such
aggressive tactics.

Worse still, people who think they aren't "nationalist" would also be filled
with hate, but towards imaginary external enemies instead. Go listen to the
people who run the EU. Listen to people like Juncker, Verhofstadt and Merkel.
They can't stop talking about the EU empire and the threats posed by "China,
Russia and the United States". The USA is rather different to China but to the
new Europeans, it's just another foreign enemy.

The way to stop people hating on each other is to help them resolve their
differences amicably. Lots of votes, lots of tiny nation-states or even city
states, and yes lots of borders, ideally of the smartest possible type to
ensure they're hardly noticeable. In the end, forcing everyone to comply with
one small group's set of preferences will always create big tensions. The
solution is thus not fewer countries, but more.

~~~
yiyus
That's an interesting point of view I cannot say I disagree with. I do not see
big fundamental differences between many small countries working together with
those smart borders you mention or some kind of big federal estate that gives
a large autonomy to its members, but you are right that what you propose may
work better in practice.

Either way, my point was that the reason I care is not the unity of Spain. You
said you did not understand why anyone would care and I said why I do. You do
not have to agree with me.

~~~
repolfx
Yes, I understand, fair point.

------
mikece
Slightly off topic, but is there a good, short summary of why Catalonia wants
to separate from Spain? I would think this would enhance the standing of the
EU as it weakens the power of one of its larger members. Heck, wouldn’t it be
in the interest of nefarious EU types to have countries like Spain, Italy,
Germany, and France and their regions/states/departments become member States
or autonomous regions within the EU?

Or is Catalonia trying to break from both Spain _and_ the EU?

~~~
ahachete
There are many alleged reasons why some people from Catalonia want to secede
from Spain. They all probably boil down to the perspective that they are a
"rich" region and they will do better on their own. Similar to Brexit.
Probably, same wrong perspective.

Irrespective of this, Spanish Constitution has a very strong enforcement of
Spain's sovereignty and unity. It belongs to all Spanish people. So if that is
to be altered --i.e., any region wants to secede-- is a decision that must
involve every Spanish citizen. So in order to proceed, either everybody needs
to participate in such a decision, or the Constitution needs to be amended.
The separatists do not want to proceed either way, so they are trying to do it
"unilaterally". That's against the Constitution, and the State needs to
protect itself from that.

Anyway, if Catalonia would eventually and legally secede from Spain, it will
be automatically out of the EU. And in order to gain access to the EU, it
would need to apply and be approved unanimously by every EU country. In other
words, Spain may veto that.

My opinion: it's shooting yourself on the feet. I believe they never intended
to secede, they were just pushing this road hard to negotiate better financing
and money for Catalonia. They have been doing this for many decades. But this
time they took it too far, lost control of it, and now they don't know how to
back track it.

~~~
UserIsUnused
They could have gone the legal route, and push to amend the constitution
first.

Not doing so shows the manipulative/dishonest nature of the leaders.

~~~
AllegedAlec
Your reply shows _your_ manipulative and dishonest nature.

There are very good reasons why the Catalans would not go for a push to amend
the constitution.

\- They believe it's a lost cause, since they are heavily outnumbered and the
rest of Spain would be insane to just accede to losing 30+% of their wealth

\- They know that the government of Spain will never let this happen.

\- They do not accept the authority of the government of Spain, and therefore
also not the constitution.

~~~
kuu
And your reply shows how selfish you are.

As the majority does not want to do as I want, I take my way, without any
other consideration.

Even the catalan people is not supporting this as a majority, you're ruling
without considering the 50% of catalonian people.

~~~
arijun
I don't know that it's obvious that the people outside of Catalonia should
have a say in Catalonia's secession (which would mean it wouldn't matter what
the majority of Spain wants, just the majority of Catalans)

Somewhere else in this thread someone mentioned that 90% the vote in Catalonia
was 90% for secession, and included half the population. It seems unlikely to
me that of the half that didn't vote, more than 90% are anti-secession.

Keep in mind, I don't live anywhere near the area, so I can't get a gut
feeling that someone from there might be able to get.

~~~
_0ffh
It was an illegal, explicitly forbidden referendum that voted 90% for
secession. That anyone even bothered to turn up, just to vote "no" is a small
miracle. So, yeah, it seems _very_ likely to me that >90% of those who didn't
vote at all would have voted against.

~~~
DuskStar
For more than 50% of the population to oppose secession, you'd need a voting
turnout of ~90%, and for _all_ the people who had not previously voted before
to vote against secession. (50% turnout with 90% for secession -> 45% of
voting population voting for secession)

Are voter turnouts normally that high in Spain?

~~~
yiyus
The referendum was totally out of control. I will always condemn the violent
response of the police that day, but the referendum was a total nonsense. You
can easily find images of boxes left on the street and people "voting" without
any control. And the counting (and whole organization) was done by those who
wanted independence. You cannot trust those numbers.

There were regional elections on December 2017 and the independentist parties
put together got 70 seats of 135 (less than the 72 they had before). More
recently, in the elections for the national government this April, they only
got 22 seats of 48 (some of the independentists refused to participate in
Spanish elections after declaring independence, but turnout was still very
high, more than 75%). The independentists never talk about these numbers, only
the 90%. And I think that, many of them, seriously believe they are the 90%.

------
johnchristopher
The article isn't going deep enough in the details.

> In summer 2018, Puigneró said Catalonia must create "a digital nation in the
> form of a republic" ahead of implementing the Catalan Republic in "physical
> form."

By allowing Catalonian citizens or Catalonian administration to host data
outside the EU ? How does that create a digital nation when your limbs are all
over the world in an ethereal form ? I don't understand what's going on.

~~~
coldtea
It's not about where the data are, but which organization is hosting them and
for what purpose.

If one wanted to make a "digital freedonia" they could start a service called
"freedonia citizens registry" for example, and have people register there,
coordinate, talk, etc -- whether the server was in Japan or Argentina or
California wouldn't matter much for those purposes...

The "host outside" part is so that the Spanish government can't just get
access to it or storm the datacenter.

Otherwise the location is not important as to the purpose.

~~~
yiyus
The location is important if it involves data from the public administration.
Nobody can avoid that "freedonia citizens registry" you talk about, but the
regional government cannot take official census data and use it to fill
Fredonia's database.

~~~
coldtea
> _Nobody can avoid that "freedonia citizens registry" you talk about, but the
> regional government cannot take official census data and use it to fill
> Fredonia's database._

What's stopping them? (besides a jurisdiction they don't recognize and want to
secede from)?

------
andy_ppp
The aggressive attitude towards Catalan separatism by the Spanish government
seems that it will make independence inevitable...

~~~
throwaway8756
To be honest, I think we already are in a point of no-return. Not necessarily
to the independence though, but who knows...

~~~
arijun
What's the alternative to independence if they cannot return to the status
quo?

~~~
swebs
Civil war.

~~~
throwaway8756
yeah, either that or splitting the region in two parts. Who knows, it's a very
difficult situation at the moment.

------
kuu
What will they expect of a state defending itself and trying to keep its
integrity?

The Spanish constitution says that the country includes Catalonia and that the
State must defend the country integrity.

Modify the constitution by democracy if you don't like it, but stop promoting
undemocratic and unconstitutional ideas.

~~~
yeahforsureman
Well, how about acting like a civilized European state going about it,
including respecting the freedoms of speech and assembly as fundamental
rights? The recent developments look very bad, and the Spanish state seems to
be engaging in blatant abuse of their anti-terrorism laws.

~~~
yiyus
> respecting the freedoms of speech and assembly as fundamental rights

When hasn't this been the case? I see the Catalonian independentists speaking
and assembling the whole time. However, blocking airports and train stations,
for example, is not a fundamental right.

------
olodus
I was interested in this because I remember there being work to get a mesh
network using ipfs or something running in Catalonia. But the article mentions
nothing about it. Anyone knows if that is still ongoing? Found something from
10 months ago about it here on HN. Would think that would only have gotten
more relevant these days. And if it is blocking they are worried about...

~~~
sewercake
Are you thinking of guifi?

------
carokann
Separatist movements in Spain are dangerous for the entirety of Europe. The
world is much less stable nowadays and the last thing you'd want is an armed
civil-war like conflict in the heart of Europe. But i'm a Turk that grew up
watching news of my fellow citizens killed by separatists on the TV so maybe
i'm a little bit more sensitive to this issue.

~~~
throwaway8756
You are not wrong. In fact, there're some suspicious that third countries
support independence movements directly or indirectly. If you think about it,
nowadays it's far easier to break a country from inside than starting a war.

~~~
carokann
Balkanization isn't helping anyone, won't help Spain or Catalonians either.
The problem relies within our changing political identity. It used to be
religion based for so long, which was splintering alright but still was more
unifying than nationalism. Now people of any ethnic identity demands a land
for it and third parties sponsor them for their own interests. How reasonable
is that? It just causes more geopolitical chaos and resource bottlenecks. EU
and the USA isn't faring too well with multiculturalism either so our
civilization is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

------
mamborambo
The idea of "digital republic" is fascinating. Politically it may be
controversial, but technically it deserves further study. As the world shifts
to the nomadic, post-industrial, cloud-based societies, countries like Estonia
with e-residency may become popular for people to opt-in to join countries
with the best social compact.

~~~
professorTuring
Yes it is! And definitely we will see more of these in the future and the
challenges they bring to the table.

Said that, it is a bureaucracy nightmare. Just imagine working as a X citizen
for a Y enterprise living in the Z country. Globalization at its best!

------
gumby
BTW Spain doesn’t have a “president” as the article says — Pedro Sánchez is
the acting prime minister. Spain is a monarchy.

I assume this is a translation error.

~~~
yiyus
In Spain, Pedro Sánchez is the president of the government, we do not have a
prime minister. See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_(government_title)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_\(government_title\))

~~~
gumby
Thanks! I think it's an unorthodox enough usage in English that IMHO the
article should have had a clarification.

Actually I would have preferred that the article should have used the
"English" term (as it does with, say, President of China) but such procedure
is highly inconsistent. Merkel is referred to as "Chancellor", which is
literally the English version of for _Kanzler_ though in English "Chancellor"
now means something quite different). Likewise the President of Iran is called
President even though there is an executive agent above him/her (less powerful
than the Spanish President).

~~~
yiyus
In your defense, I would bet that changing "president of Spain" to "president
of the government of Spain" has been one of the most common corrections not
only for foreign journalists, but also Spanish ones.

------
iagovar
Well I didn't know that we were going to link straight up propaganda here in
HN. I wonder how much time until we bring Sputnik and RT.

For those who didn't know this site:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_News_Agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_News_Agency)

It has very close ties with Carles Puigdemont, which has been his director
once.

~~~
Hermel
If you think something in the article is factually wrong, it would be kind to
let us know. News should be judged by their content, and not by the messenger.

------
ahbyb
Translation: Spain will enforce the law that says that citizen data must be
kept in servers in the EU instead of digital havens, which is what the Catalan
government is doing.

~~~
swebs
>Spain will enforce the law

Spain will _create_ that law

~~~
ahbyb
Which strikes me as odd, because I recall there is a European law that says
that personal data of European citizens must remain within the EU.

~~~
bluGill
Check with a lawyer for details, but the best way to describe it is the EU can
do little about data once it is outside of the EU: their laws don't apply
elsewhere. They have ways around this.

If you have a EU presence (ie an office) that presence gets into trouble if
data is sent outside the EU without a lot of care - this includes care to
ensure the foreign government of where you send the data won't get it (which
makes most companies not transmit data outside the EU if at all possible).

None of the above applies to this case though because presumably it is the
person in question sending his own data outside the EU. There isn't much they
can do about that.

~~~
yiyus
> None of the above applies to this case though because presumably it is the
> person in question sending his own data outside the EU. There isn't much
> they can do about that.

Not at all. The problem here is that the Catalan government took advantage of
their power position and used official data to fill the database of this
"digital republic". This is precisely what this law disallows. They can still
hold servers where citizens enter their own data.

~~~
bluGill
I stand corrected

------
UserIsUnused
So, will Streisand Effect manifest? I think it already is.

~~~
buboard
I presume the secessionists are actually a minority. The effect is already in
full force

~~~
UserIsUnused
90% win on a referendum that less than half population attended has it was
deemed has an unlawful referendum.

But it was still over 90% result.

~~~
buboard
Are there actual polls on the ground? The referendum was obviously biased. If
things were not so heated, a non-binding referendum might be the right choice
, but this is not going to happen

