Pro-independence movement comparable to ‘dictatorship,’ says PP secretary general

The secretary-general of Spain’s ruling People’s Party (PP) and minister of defense Maria Dolores de Cospedal, criticized the Catalan independence movement in a speech on April 15. Comparing the movement to a “dictatorship,” Cospedal said that “when some want to surpass the law and be more important than it, democracy ends, and dictatorships begin.” This, on the same day that hundreds of thousands took to the street to decry the incarceration of those officials behind bars or abroad for their role in the independence roadmap in Catalonia.