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Catalonia has declared independence from Spain

CABAL

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BBC Article

The Spanish parliament, meanwhile, has decided to enforce 'direct rule' over Catalonia. Catalonia has, in the past, had more autonomy than other regions in Spain.

Edit: Spain has invoked Article 155 of their constitution, allowing them to use force to prevent the secession.
 
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kjc733

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This is a very messy situation.
The Spanish government should have allowed them to hold their referendum without risk of violence as its likely that only those who want independence actually tried to vote. Those who didn't want it didn't bother as they were told not to because it was an illegal vote.
Now we have the anti-independence ministers boycotting a vote... so once again the result was overwhelmingly in favour.
Then of course there's the Spanish government playing hard ball and making every single possible wrong decision, from sending forces to stop the vote, to threatening imprisonment for trying it and (I think) actually detaining legally elected officials. It is not the way to win the hearts and minds of the population!
Forgive me if I've made mistakes in any of the above - it's been a rough week and usually when I see an announcement on the news I stare at it incredulously for a moment before turning it off and watching something far more credible - like Eureka reruns :lol2:

I would also like to note that I have no horse in this race - I just can't believe the heavy handedness of some of the players.
 

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I don't particularly care if Catalonia is independent or not either, but that this is happening at all has certainly damaged my view of the Spanish government. I know that near total freedom of speech is largely limited to the US, legally, but attempts to limit criticism of the government are always a bad sign. That Catalonia also has enough people in favor of secession for this to be a concern is also a sign that the Spanish government may not have been treating the province as well as they should. That their immediate response (a little over an hour) to the issue was to invoke an article of their constitution that grants nebulous and far-reaching powers to prevent attempts at secession rather than even consider opening a dialog or at least waiting a few days to think about it is also very troubling.
 

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kjc733

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:confused:
For the love of all that is holy. There was no need to release a statement, the politicians all need to keep their noses out of Spanish business and let them sort themselves out.
 
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