CUP Councillor accused of insurrection laments Spain’s “anti-democratic nature”

Barcelona (CNA).- City councillor from Vic, Joan Coma, testified before the Court for allegedly ‘inciting to sedition’ for having said at a city hall meeting that civil disobedience was a legitimate option for achieving independence. Pro-independence radical left CUP’s Coma refused to willingly declare in October and this Wednesday he appeared before Madrid’s Audiencia Nacional. “We are up against a state with a strongly anti-democratic nature”, stated Coma after leaving the Court and called on those who defend Catalonia’s independence but also those who don’t want to join efforts to “overcome the current stage”. Coma lamented “the Spanish State’s prosecution of political ideas” and defended the “right to exercise civil disobedience” in order to fight “injustice”. Coma was cleared of charges, but his passport has been taken from him.

“We are up against a state with a strongly anti-democratic nature”, stated Coma after leaving the Court and added that “for this stage to be overcome it is not only the support of all those in favour of Catalonia’s independence which is required but also that of those who don’t defend it and who are inside Catalonia but also in the rest of Spain”. “This is not a problem of timing” continued Coma, referring to the Spanish Constitutional Court suspension of the Parliament’s plan to call a referendum in September 2017, “the problem is the Spanish State’s prosecution of political ideas, we are being prosecuted for defending in a plenary session what is established in our political programme”, he added.

In this vein, Coma defended the “right to exercise civil disobedience”. “The goal of civil and non-violent disobedience is to overcome unfair laws and fight for better ones” he explained before the press and called civil disobedience as “a legitimate instrument which is not only democratic but democratising in the face of situations of clear injustice”.

“We have come to defend the right of the Catalan people to freely decide their future through a referendum which we will carry out whatever the case may be, whether it is agreed with the Spanish state or not”, he declared. 

“Coma explained his position and defended the legitimacy of civil disobedience as a democratic instrument which leads to social change”, Coma’s lawyer and CUP MP, Benet Salellas, explained before the press. “He was asked whether he recognised the Spanish judicial system and he replied that it was not a specific problem of the Spanish courts; he refused to appear before any court whatsoever which didn’t recognise the minimum political rights and he assumed that his trial didn’t respect that”, Salellas continued.

Mayor of Berga also testified before the ‘Audiencia Nacional’

In November, the police arrested Montse Venturós, Mayor of Berga, a small village 80 kilometres from Barcelona, for an alleged ‘electoral crime’. Pro-independence radical left CUP Venturós was accused of ignoring the Electoral Roll Office’s warrants and maintaining aloft the pro-independence flag which hung on the façade of the Town Hall on two election days: the 27-S Catalan Elections and the 20-D Spanish Elections. Her arrest caused an outcry amongst pro-independence parties and also those in favour of the right of Catalonia to hold a referendum on independence. Talking to journalists after testifying before the judge, Venturós confirmed her commitment to the “popular mandate” towards independence and said that her arrest was “a new attack on the Catalan people” by “an absolutely anti-democratic” Spanish state. The Catalan Government described the arrest as “outrageous”.