Biggest protest in Spain against Catalan amnesty law draws 170,000
Biggest protest in Spain against Catalan amnesty law draws 170,000
About 170,000 people marched through Madrid on Saturday in the largest protest yet against an amnesty law which Spain's Socialists agreed over Catalonia's 2017 separatist bid in order to form a government.
Freedom for Catalonia! They voted 90% in favor for independence, Spain's government claimed that the vote invalid, then jailed the politicians who organized the referendum.
The government didn't claim the vote invalid, the vote was illegal from the beginning. And even then, they barely got past 40% positive votes, what would you do with the other almost 60% of the population? And that's assuming everyone took it seriously and voted.
If the central government claims the local independence referendum is invalid, then the central government should host an independence referendum under whatever rules make it legal and binding, at the option of provincial leaders. If that can’t be done, then the breakaway province should consider itself an occupied territory and any means to oust the occupiers should be seen as self-defense.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The demonstration, the latest in a series of protests in cities across the country against the amnesty, took place two days after Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won a four-year term with the backing of Catalan and Basque nationalist parties in return for agreeing to the law.
Protesters, many waving Spanish flags and holding signs that read "Sanchez traitor" and "Don't sell Spain", demonstrated against the law which four judicial associations, opposition political parties and business leaders said threatens the rule of law and the separation of powers.
After the rally, hundreds of people protested in the motorway near the Moncloa Palace, the prime minister's residence in Madrid.
The independence referendum was declared illegal by the courts and resulted in Spain's worst political crisis for decades.
Protesters, including neo-Nazi groups, have held rowdy demonstrations outside the Socialist headquarters in Madrid for 15 nights consecutively since the deal was announced.
There have been clashes with police which left officers and demonstrators injured but in general the protests have been peaceful.
The original article contains 406 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!