Speaker puts forth commission to protect civil and political rights

The speaker of the Catalan parliament, Roger Torrent, registered on June 18 a proposal to create a commission to study civil and political rights in Catalonia, faced with what he considers Spain’s “authoritarian” response to the October 1 independence referendum.

This is the first time that the head of the Catalan chamber has put forth a proposal for a creation of a commission. In a text released in a Catalan newspaper, Torrent asserts that the “irresponsibility of the Spanish government to try to solve a problem of political nature in a judicial way has generated a democratic regression without precedents.”

The objective of the commission, according to the text addressed to the Parliament bureau, is to “analyze the depth of the violations that have been produced, the measures that can be adopted to guarantee respect and the fulfilment of international legality in terms of individual and collective human rights, and actions that can contribute to creating an appropriate framework to exercise these rights.”

On the day of the independence referendum, October 1, 2017, police charged voters in a number of schools being used as polling stations across the country. The day left 1,066 people injured, according to the Catalan health department. The lack of investigation into the day itself has drawn criticism from organizations, like NGO Amnesty International.