Attacks on political symbols in public decrease since May

Attacks on political symbols, such as the removal of yellow ribbons or flags, are on the decrease.

Although media coverage of these events is becoming more prominent, the Department of Internal Affairs announced that in May there were 93 incidents. This dropped to 52 cases in June, and then 33 last month.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Miquel Buch, avoided expressing satisfaction and asserted that the figure needs to drop to zero.

With this in mind, he warned that the government will employ all its democratic tools to “pursue” anyone who seeks to violate the ideological rights of citizens. He also asked the Spanish government to create courts specialized in hate crimes in Catalonia in order to deal with these cases.

Heated debate.

Political symbols in public, particularly those representing the Catalan independence cause, have been a hot topic of debate recently.

Unionists  in Catalonia have announced they are are doubling-down on their efforts to remove pro-independence flags and symbols in support of jailed leaders from public spaces, both at the legislative and levels, and also by taking them out themselves.

Albert Rivera, the leader of Ciutadans, the main opposition party to the pro-independence government, took on the Spanish president on Monday and said  that “if [Pedro] Sánchez’s government doesn’t want to clean illegal separatist propaganda off public spaces in Catalonia, we’ll do it.”