Opinion | Few parallels in Catalonia with events in Hong Kong
- In Spain and Hong Kong there were protests on the streets and clashes with police, but that’s where the similarities end
In the last few days, some people have tried to establish a connection between the events in Hong Kong and what happened recently in Barcelona. This connection may have been accepted by people of good faith who do not know the political situation in Catalonia very well. This is perfectly understandable. Most Spaniards do not know the political situation in Hong Kong very well either.
In both cases, there were protests on the streets and clashes with the police. However, the parallels stop there.
Spain is a democracy governed by the rule of law, where all political ideas can be openly and freely defended. According to Freedom House’s 2019 Freedom in the World Report, Spain scored 94 out of 100 in its commitment to political rights and civil liberties – equal to Germany and Britain.
When the Spanish Constitution was approved by referendum in 1978, 90.5 per cent of Catalan voters supported it, and just 4.6 per cent voted against it. The constitution grants a very high level of autonomy to Catalonia and also enshrines the country’s territorial integrity, as do most democratic constitutions.
Nonetheless, in 2017 some politicians tried to force the unilateral secession of Catalonia from the rest of Spain. What was peculiar about this effort is that it was not conducted by any opposition or underground group, but by the president and some counsellors of the Catalan autonomous government, and by the president of the Parliament of Catalonia. That is, from the very institutions created by the Spanish Constitution to grant an extensive degree of self-rule to all Catalans.
To achieve their goals, the politicians breached the Spanish Constitution, the Catalan Statute of Autonomy and many other laws. They ignored decisions of the Courts of Justice, including the Constitutional Court. In short, they acted in complete disregard of legal and democratic procedures, promoting public disorder and financing some of those activities with public funds. All those actions were directed from the top positions of the government and the Parliament of Catalonia.