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Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

"civil war", "genocide". Come on people, don't throw these words willy-nilly, leave that to bad news outlets.

Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum (probably unnecessarily so) but we're not on the verge of a catalan genocide in any way, shape or form. If you keep abusing words they end up losing their meaning.

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Is it genocide to shoot at protesters if they are primarily a particular ethnicity?

Because that may be what Spain has to do to force Catalonia to comply.

I think they'll be shooting less because they're a particular ethnicity and more because they're rioting, protesting the decision, or directly fighting the government. Ethnic differences would be coincidental in such an occurrence.

"Quite brutal" by the standards of the ordinary course of civil society, yes. "Quite brutal" by the standards of governments facing an insurrection? Not so much.

Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum

That's wrong. There were a handful of injured, don't believe the propaganda. Most international media that were fooled by that lies have acknowledged this much.

I will just leave this here:

https://spanishpolice.github.io/

It's interesting to see how quickly people will downplay and deny the actions of the Guardia Incivil.

If the referendum is illegitimate, why suppress it? ;- )

Because they were planning to spend millions of euro in an illegal thing. Money directly stolen from people like you and me.

Sending the cops in seems like throwing good money after bad. The ballots were already printed, etc.

The Spanish government regularly wastes Catalonian money, including sending in police to suppress this technically illegitimate vote. Whatever this vote cost to administer, it is a pittance in the grand scheme of things, especially considering the people seem to be willing to bear the economic burden of attempting to gain sovereignty.

If their crime is misappropriating funds for the referendum, then surely the police should be arresting the politicians, not harassing the public at large.

Because they were planning to spend millions of euro in an illegal thing, and use the results to try to legitimize the illegal thing in the eyes of the world.

Having 11.000 Spanish policemen in Catalonia, including the ones in the Lonely Tones ship, costs 33M EUR a day.

If the referendum is illegitimate, why suppress it? ;- )

If murder is illegitimate, why suppress it? Brilliant.

If you could save murder victims retroactively by just not recognizing the murder, this analogy might land.

Regardless of the scale and strength of the repression I'm still of the opinion that it was unwarranted. Declare the referendum to be illegal, tell lawful spanish citizens to stay home then disregard the results. Maybe prosecute the people organizing the referendum if the law allows it.

Even though the referendum was illegal it didn't create any imminent danger. Therefore I think the use of force by Madrid was disproportionate. It also effectively backfired by making the independentists look more sympathetic even though their motive is for the most part rather selfish at the core.

It's true that it was a disaster but not because they tried to prevent it, but because they didn't the obvious thing and sent the police one day earlier. The videos that are in that page are not particularly violent, just what you would expect when people resist the police.

Oh FFS. We know what we saw on TV outside your little PP-controlled broadcast TV bubble. I was watching footage of your police beating the shit out of people all day long.

This particular argument -- "fake news, it didn't happen" -- is outside of Spain the most ridiculous Trumpish nonsense imaginable. "Lies"? I saw it with my own eyes in real time. Looking us right in the eye and insisting that black is white is offensive.

Are internet, Twitter and Youtube now controlled by PP? I don't think so.

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