CatalanGate: Spyware operation against Catalans using Pegasus and Candiru
citizenlab.ca
citizenlab.ca
> Jordi Baylina is the technology lead at Polygon, a popular decentralised Ethereum scaling platform. He is also an advisor on projects related to digital voting and decentralisation, and has built a widely-used privacy toolkit. He was extensively targeted with Pegasus, receiving at least 26 infection attempts. Ultimately, he was infected at least eight times between October 2019 and July 2020.
> Baylina received a text message masquerading as a boarding pass link for a Swiss International Air Lines flight he had purchased. Targeting in this case indicates that the Pegasus operator may have had access to Baylina’s Passenger Name Record (PNR) or other information collected from the carrier.
Scare stuff that not just random text messages can infect you (we knew this) but combined with harvesting other data (like PNR), they can time to exploit messages with other actions you do (like buying an flight ticket) and get you that way.
I was scared of receiving random text messages already, but easy to just ignore them as they have nothing to do with me. But if I buy a flight ticket and receive a text message that looks relevant to me, I'm not sure I'd be able to guess it was actually malicious. Scary stuff.
Edit: The more I read, the worse it gets:
> Another common mode of targeting was to masquerade as official notifications from Spanish government entities, including the Tax and Social Security authorities.The messages also used SMS Sender IDs to masquerade as official agency accounts.
> Notably, fake official messages were sometimes highly personalized. For example, a message sent to Jordi Baylina included a portion of his actual official tax identification number, suggesting that the Pegasus operator had access to this information.
Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse.
It seems that the Spanish government can't help itself to give more fuel to the fire that is the fight for Catalan independence. Who'd want to belong to a state that constantly suppresses and surveillance you?
All they’d have have to do is get a few timed hits for your location and then look for a common IMEI at nearby towers.
I am a bit of a broken record on this point, but it's a state actor.
Spain comprises multiple nations, Catalonia being one of them.
Many scholars, politicians, and citizens, even excluding people outside of the Overton window, describe Spain as containing several nations. At the very least Catalonia, the Basque Country / Euskal Herria, and Galicia are widely (but not unanimously) considered to have the historic, cultural, social characteristics that would make them nations. The spanish constitution is a document of compromise, born of a very special time in history; whatever it says about what Spain is, we don't have to accept it.
(Biases disclaimer: I'm Spanish, specifically castilian; I don't support Catalonian independence, and I dislike all nationalisms; all nations are more like big balls of wibbly wobbly... nation-y wimey... stuff)
This piece of news doesn't yet show up on the spanish newspapers I trust; I'm really curious to see if it makes the news. I'll be extremely concern if, as I fear, if doesn't.
We are very misunderstood, for sure.
Also when you dive into what 'nation' really means, it starts hitting people's racism and 'X supremacy' instincts fairly quickly, so people use the word ethnicity or culture instead nowadays.
This may be a technical forum, people can Google it up and do some deep research.
More BS. Are you saying that the Catalonian politicians in the government are spies from Castilla? Maybe disguised under evil twisted castillian moustaches?.
Please, lets be serious. I can see politicians from each coin of Spain in the government.
To my knowledge NSO software (and similar) target exploits in OS-specific applications (think default Messages app on iOS) rather than, e.g., Google Voice. That being said, I personally don't know if Google Voice and similar are special enough not to have their own exploits (spoiler: they probably aren't, and Google Voice in particular would be a very enticing target).
I'd expect there's more to it than that, though. I'm really not familiar with these exploits.
I use it as a burner for any website that requires a phone number. I figure it will be easy enough to change my burner phone number if it gets leaked to some shady DB.
Not arguing again't your claim either way, but SMS sender can be set to anything, it's a feature of the system for it to work. The "DNI" (Spanish identification number) can't be considered private information and isn't difficult to find.
There is a third alternative. An insider leaked it.
Perhaps that's not the official stance of the government, but an organization is only a monolith with a single public position to the extent that they're able to enforce proper actions. The official Spanish government being publicly neutral but actually unable to ensure that their own members act in accord with this position and instead instigating extensive attacks is not that different from the official Spanish government being behind the attacks. Will the insider be punished sufficiently to deter others from following in their footsteps?
To pick one of the more likely scenarios: if a government worker sold a database on the open (criminal) market, there's no meaningful sense in which "the Spanish government is behind this".
A thousand curses on them. A disgusting fish, a disgusting software and a disgusting developer.
This is something that hurts people. Do not celebrate it.
I wonder how these people protect their digital assets? Are there guidelines?
For example, if I am Microsoft CEO, would it be okay if I use the closed source iPhone from a competing company? Or perhaps these people use special hardened devices?
Because even Apple CEO uses iPhone, and Pegasus apparently could hack any iPhone with zero click. So what prevents acquisition of highly valuable inside information by NSO or its customers (sensitive data about the company, iOS source code, implanting malware by infecting Apple engineers for the next exploit, etc)?
Given the Bezos hack two years ago I think the answer to that question is actually, very little. Cisco and Blackberry for example used to provide hardened phones for executives but with the prominence of modern smartphones it seems like even CEOs of large companies are increasingly on insecure hardware.
The sysadmin's password was, wait for it... P4ssword
I could have gone further and unpacked the code, beautifying it to see what 0 day it was leveraging, but I didn't proceed further. Obviously, this was designed to take over my device. Luckily, my default browser on my phone is Firefox with JavaScript turned off, so it wouldn't have been able to execute if I did click on the link.
Also, if you aren't on a phone or similar, you can just use curl to expand shortened URLS. Tell it follow redirects (-L) and print headers (-I), and use the last "location: " header it spits out. e.g.,
curl -fsSLI https://t.co/blahblah | sed -n 's/^location: //p'The true scary portion of this world is not even being sent an SMS/clicking a dangerous link, for a while people were getting infected without ever clicking anything
To me the most interesting leak/investigation that can come out of NSO is what happens once a 0-day is patched, is there downtime? do customers need to wait for a software update? is there automatic rotation of exploits?
I'd have to think NSO Group has the finances to bank at least a few 0-click, zero-days. It seems that the price of such vulnerabilities is increasing however. Zerodium, a large zero-day broker, is paying up to 2.5 million USD for 0-click Android and 2 million USD for iOS: https://zerodium.com/program.html
It's boring and tedious, yet crucial.
If you think that the governments of 'western democracies' weren't spying on their own citizens or going against their own laws - even in collaboration with private interests - before the advent of the Internet and spyware/malware, I've got bad news for you.
I do not have a solution, but I'd just like to point out that if someone on HN makes a comment like the one GP did, they 100% understand that this isn't "new". I also don't think we should just accept this as a part of life because "it was all happening before", because the level of spying the internet has enabled is orders of magnitude worse than it was without it. We should be afraid and upset.
And yes, I have been, and remain, upset about it. No worries there.
I would like to learn more about common views on this. Would my belief above actually be true going back as long as monarchies have existed, until maybe post WW2?
I’d see it as a magical period between WW2 and today where the belief was in fairness and universal rule of law.
Even this, I would say, was manufactured, and not as widespread of a belief as the "winners write history" camp would have us believe.
It certainly wasn't true, or even thought true, in America (and other western countries too) if you weren't white and Christian.
A lad involved in crypto trade and online voting travels to Switzerland, from a place notorious by recent suspicious money movements linked with Switzerland banks. I bet that this particular combination of keywords would raise some eyebrows and trigger a discreet interest by any police working in anticorruption or money laundering.
TBH I do not know what the solution is here, I'd like to see a unified country, but I can see how both the left and right politic parties are destroying it (one with lies/doctrinism, other with oppression/treating them like they are still 3rd party) and makes me sad. When visiting Barcelona, Spanish is often the 3rd language, after the Catalan (for Catalonian and the rest of Spain) and English (for tourists).
Edit: look at the numbers, it's scary how in a single generation a whole region has gone from 90%+ wanting to be united to 50%+ wanting independence, specially during a "peace" era:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement#...
Non separatist Catalan here and I can say this is complete BS. There is no doubt that there is more people in Catalunya that doesn't know Catalan than Spanish. I have been raised in a family that has been speaking Catalan for many generations and everybody now is almost bilingual with Spanish. And oh hell if I wish that English was the second language there.
Tired of this propaganda that only causes more pain and exalts nationalist feelings in both sides.
So my anecdote would be that generally Barcelona seems to be fine with Spanish (and walking around the city I heard a lot more Spanish than both English and Catalan) while areas up north/west seems to almost require you to speak in Catalan.
In the rural area that's much less except for the migrant farm workers
You could say that this is not bad, ok. But you can't deny it.
Go there and experience it yourself and try to create an objective opinion from it. Another fact, most of the first generation immigrants will learn Spanish way earlier than Catalan, if they ever learn Catalan at all. And I am not saying this is bad, as for practical reasons they will obviously learn the 4th most spoken language in the world before learning a language that is spoken by 7 million people. Besides they know that with Spanish they can communicate with everybody, which is not the case with Catalan.
More rigor and an independent point of view from politicians and media is needed if there is a real will to solve the issue.
If they do secede from Spain I will not learn Catalan, I will just leave. I'll probably have to anyway because I assume Spain will force them out of the EU and there's no way the multinational I work for will stay then.
It feels very similar to Ireland where they also use heavy handed methods to keep their language alive but in a globalized world it would hurt them a lot if it were actually needed to live there. So it has to stay this fringe thing. A lot of it is just to pacify the old people that still associate English with the British oppression (which was brutal to be fair)
I assume this will happen to Catalan too, the oppression is just a lot more recent to them. So it's more fresh and alive.
FWIW I'm Dutch and I wouldn't care if my country abolishes Dutch in favor of English. I view language as a means of communication, not cultural identity. And as such being able to communicate with as many people as possible makes a language more valuable.
What's wrong with having separate countries? Would Canadians be better off if they were part of America? I don't understand westerners who cheer for independence in places like Xinjiang and Tibet but steadfastly oppose the idea when any region of their own country wants to be independent.
The book Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Khor talks about this. He talks about the idea of dividing into smaller political units to fix our problems. He makes a lot of sense. There's a video summarizing the book [0].
Yeah, sure.
"In July 2014, Jordi Pujol confessed that for 34 years, including 23 as the President of Catalonia, he had maintained secret foreign bank accounts inherited from his father".
"His children have amassed a fortune in private businesses that frequently did business and received contracts from the Catalan government" (The infamous 3% scandal).
"They have investments in the tens of millions of dollars in Mexico, Panama and Argentina. Financial records show the movement of money between foreign banks in Andorra, Switzerland, Jersey, Cayman Islands and other tax havens in excess of €100 million".
He and his seven children face charges for illicit association, money laundering, falsification of documents and seven different tax crimes. the prosecutor asks between that could compris between 28 and 7 years of jail. The wife has been recorded laundering money but has been exonerated by her problems of health.
Totally not a godfather figure, for sure.
At least four of the last presidents of Cataluña (all either from the Pujol's party or their legacy) had been involved in a rich catalog of scams and frauds, including one fugitive in search and capture and two inhabilitated by repeatedly disobeying the laws that they should represent or spending public money in very questionable ways.
There is material here for several godfather trilogies plus a police academy series. Is simply grotesque.
While there has been corruption in all sides, this statement needs clarification. The search and capture issued to interpol was obeyed by Germany. Upon examination of Spain‘s reasons the court in Germany decided it was not enough proof to send Puigdemont back to Spain. If anything, this seems to contradict what one would think of when reading the above sentence without context.
I have no stake in either outcome of independence happening or not, but I can definitely understand that some people can see it as problematic if one part of a bigger thing wants to leave without considering the other parts.
I still think Catalunya should be able to decide themselves, just like the UK decided themselves if they wanna leave the EU. Forcing states to belong to other states is something I thought we left behind a long time ago.
The idea here would be more like: I rebuild your home, I spend a lot in infrastructures for you and now that you are rich you slam your door in my face.
For the record I am neither for nor against Catalan independence, it is none of my business and not my place to judge.
HN lately doesn't fail to disappoint. I don't know what else to do other than quote what you are replying to. Turn your auto pilot off.
> I am neither for nor against Catalan independence
The reasoning China and Russia give for their actions is facile. You're rather making my point.
"Catalonia should be independent! And Barcelona should be an independent city-state within it! Why not!"
"I am neither for nor against independence but this is an overly simplistic attitude, you clearly haven't thought about what you're saying seriously at all"
"You're just like China!"You can't just start voting to secede from the country you belong to. Voting independence for the sake of it doesn't make any sense.
An independent town may want to separate but wouldn't have the resources.
I have a better idea, why not threat with stop breathing until their requirements are accepted?
Now seriously. This is a false dichotomy. Threatening an entire nation with terrorism until you have your candy and are allowed to stole the properties of the majority of your neighbors is neither acceptable, funny, or serious. Not when all that you have to sustain your utopia is a big mouth and guerrilla tricks seen in internet.
If suggesting naive adolescents to engage in terrorism is the level of the arguments, we need more adults entering the room. Blackmailing an entire country will often backfire.
What if that town votes for independence and then votes to be part of, lets say, China? They would have enough resources then. But anyway, nobody is using the resource argument here in the Catalonian independence issue.
You may not like it but it does make sense - countries have come into existence as a direct result of "terrorism" leading to civil war. Given the demographic breakdown of HN, it is very likely you live in one of those right now. Also remember that Spain struggled with violent separatist movement which was still active well into this century, so it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
Terrorism in Catalonia was a thing years ago but it stopped. They never went as far as the ETA terrorist group from the Basque Country. And even then, independence was not an option. If you start conceding things under the thread of terrorism, where do you draw the line?
The Spanish constitution is clear. You can't claim/vote for independence. As in any other modern country we are subject to the rule of law so if they want independence, they should start by trying to change the constitution.
Oh and you can bet Puidgemont was seeking russian support for his independence plans https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2021-09-03/el-equipo-de-...
(Which doesn't mean many people don't have a legitimate wish of independence or more autonomy but of course the discussion has many nuances)
Meanwhile, back in the real world, states in the actual Balkans are actively joining the European Union and gaining freedom of movement throughout the region. Even Balkanization is not what it used to be.
In the real world there are world powers that benefit from a unified Europe with strong central authority and those that don't. Brexit serves the interests of the later. Scottish independence would further those interests still.
Catalan independence weakens Spain and by extension NATO.
This is not a statement on the morality of such movements or whether they might be a good idea in the narrow sense for Scots, Catalans, the people of Flanders and so forth. Rather it is a look at the larger map and unintended consequences.
Finally, as to what is actually happening in the Balkans - the state of affairs between Kosovo and Albania (ironically they might form a union) and Bosnia is.. not fantastic to say the least.
Sadly memories are short and attitudes are cavalier.
> Catalan independence weakens Spain and by extension NATO.
Why? Does any of these actually want to leave NATO?
Or is this just a generic conservative position "change causes political instability, political instability bad therefore change bad"? ?
I am not a conservative. Your attitude itself is an example of the division and political instability.
The SNP (love them or hate them, I don't care): "an independent Scotland would prioritise the speediest possible safe removal of nuclear weapons."
Say this populist party has its William Wallace moment, now what is left of the UK will have to disentangle itself militarily. It will certainly be a politically heated moment in time, I'm sure you're aware of Russian interference in these things if nothing else as agents of chaos - Voilà.
It is certainly easier to agitate an independent small country to force the Brits to move their nuclear subs.
You can be all for Scottish independence conceptually, morally, whatever - and still be concerned about the whole board.
This is disingenuous without giving the context of that quote. The UK's nuclear submarines are stored in Scotland, near Edinburgh (the Forth estuary). The Scottish people don't want those nukes there, both because of the inherent danger these missiles pose, and because it paints a target on their head.
The SNP's position is that if the English want to keep their nukes, they should keep them in England. That's what "removal" refers to here, it is not about forcing the English to disarm.
Response: "But the balkan countries want to join the EU, which is anti-Brexitesque which is the thing that I oppose and wish to grind my axe about. Checkmate!"
Me: "What he is talking about is that there are world powers that benefit from a unified Europe with strong central authority and those that don't."
Response: "You're a conservative!"
Me: "I am not a conservative. This is about divide and conquer. It is easier to take on multiple smaller adversaries that are preoccupied with in-fighting.
For example, I am neither pro nor against Scottish independence, but as part of that process the main political party involved has stated it will attempt to remove nuclear subs from its newly controlled territory - which will harm the British defence posture - for populist reasons and to the sole long term benefit of their adversaries"
Response: "This is disingenuous! It isn't about forcing the English to disarm, just to move!"
Me: "I said move.."
Response: "OK, fine you said move. But! Your argument loses quite a lot of value, since I personally don't understand the negative impact of moving subs"
I give up comrade.
I am not calling you a conservative -- few people can be defined with a single word -- but you do have a conservative position here: you just keep repeating an argument that boils down to "change is bad because of change". You even fail to see that you are not really elaborating on the reason, which only adds to the feeling of bias.
It's not like these borders are written in stone. It's not like balkanization in Europe will actually lead to a less powerful european govern structure -- it may actually lead to a more powerful EU; without large-population states monopolizing it, smaller states have one less reason to mistrust EU-centralized government. I even mentioned in another comment this was actually the real goal of the early pan-european people, and not what we have now.
But it's all hard to predict. What I'm not going to do is to say that all of this is bad "because it is change".
And these arguments about the omni-present "enemy state actors" contributing to almost practically every cause (except, apparently, the cause of preserving the status quo. a status quo which is not really that great and which almost certainly ends very bad for us. why would foreign actors want to meddle with that?) quickly get tiresome.
Your disdain for conservatives is palpable, and that is your business. The response some people have, especially nowadays, to even a whiff of conservatism is to reject everything out of hand often before reading or comprehending anything actually said.
It is tedious. Especially with the in vogue tactics of rewriting what somebody says into the usual talking points (both liberals and conservatives do this ad nauseam).
> you just keep repeating an argument that boils down to "change is bad because of change"
For the last time, that is _not_ the argument presented.
Try to read again carefully, without assuming I am a conservative, and better yet, without viewing everything through the prism of politics.
> than generically saying "it will harm the British defense posture". Why?
This should be your one and only concern. I hardly care where it fits in some provincial spat between liberals and conservatives.
Change is not bad, change is a fixture of life. Change for the sake of sticking it to your local political opponents is foolish short term thinking. Whether those subs are optimally placed truly has nothing to do with Scottish independence and the linking of the two subjects is due to myopic populism.
It is not difficult to understand how an external player could exploit these "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" feelings to get people to act irrationally. For example, Brexit exploited English conservative desires to stick it to liberals and moving subs exploits the Scottish independence movement and their desire to tell the English to get stuffed.
The winner in both cases is one and the same.
> You even fail to see that you are not really elaborating on the reason, which only adds to the feeling of bias.
Search your feelings better.
This is ridiculous; the reason I defended myself, is because _I think of myself as a conservative_. But this doesn't free one from having to justify oneself; rather the opposite, and I very much understand that.
> For the last time, that is _not_ the argument presented.
Okey , so what is the argument presented?
Why is this creating destabilization? I only see two arguments in the entire conversation:
* Moving the subs "weakens the British defense posture". Why? Because it weakens it. I guess I should apparently read this again and again until I understand it.
* Change "for the sake of sticking it to the opposition and for the benefit of one's adversaries" is bad. Yet this is both a strawman and at the same time begging the question. First, you have not justified why this is done only to "stick it to the opposition", there are valid arguments for (some of them presented above) and against which you are not even entertaining, just discarding. Second, "for the benefit of adversaries" is _your conclusion_, not a premise, not an argument.
With this type of reasoning, it doesn't matter how many times you ask for people to re-read your comment; we are just going on in circles here.
> It is not difficult to understand how an external player could exploit these "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" feelings to get people to act irrationally.
Or to _prevent_ people from taking the rational course of action out of FUD.
Because is my country also, and they want to gag me and to steal me.
The sovereignty of a country relies in all citizens, and the citizenship came with some inalienable rights. In the same way as Nevada couldn't wake up tomorrow and decide that they will became part of China and the rest of the Americans can't enter or live there anymore. Changing the fate for every citizen would need to consult every citizen in the country about what they want to do, and the immense majority of us don't want to lose part of our country by a bunch of crooks. Period. Is called democracy.
Maybe the same should be extended to the Catalans.
Luckily I'm too young to remember, but I do know older people talking about ETA with fear and me thinking they were overblowing it, until I stumbled upon the wikipedia article with all they did and holy cow when I looked at the list of the 2000s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ETA_attacks#2000%E2%80...
Maybe this is what happens when you try strangle a nation and its culture, but you fail to do it entirely. Catalonia was conquered by force, and luckily its language and culture survived along the centuries (despite all attempts). You can't invade a region, enforce your language and culture and expect it to magically become yours. Look at what happened to all the other (former) Spanish colonies, how many of them fought for their independence (and won it)?
> TBH I do not know what the solution is here, I'd like to see a unified country
You would like a "united country", but this will prove difficult, as there is no such thing. Spain is just Castille and a bunch of other regions conquered by force – with more or less success at assimilating them into the Castilian culture over time. Some went along, some do not feel like they belong, some feel entirely mistreated but got an ok tax deal with enough leeway, and some just had enough altogether.
Many Catalans (me included) don't want to be part of Spain, and I doubt this will change any time soon. Especially on those who witnessed what happened during our attempt at a peaceful referendum in 2017. The speech the King of Spain gave after citizens where beaten for trying to cast a vote(!) is a great example. The silence of the non-catalans whilst the beating was happening another one. The former King doings, his fleeing out of the country with total impunity, and how the farce of a judicial system treated the whole thing, one more for the list. There's a certain "way of doing" embedded deep into Spain, that I fear will never go away ("atado y bien atado").
There's only one solution and it's what Catalonia has been asking for all along. Allow a fair referendum, where the repercussions of both options (stay and secede) are explained clearly to the population, and let the people decide. It seems inconceivable to me that a proper referendum about this ongoing issue is not allowed, especially in a supposedly democratic country like Spain.
I could see Spain and Catalonia being good allies within the EU; but as it is setup now, the relationship is just not working. And making it work "by force" will only stir more and more trouble.
> it's scary how in a single generation a whole region has gone from 90%+ wanting to be united to 50%+ wanting independence, specially during a "peace" era
I think you are confusing 90%+ "wanting to be united" for "not bothered enough to do anything about it".
The end of the dictatorship (without consequences the fascist side btw) gave hope to a lot of people, and attempts were made to "make it work" despite all the terrible acts Catalonia suffered. As soon as it became obvious there was no way to decide our own future whilst inside Spain (see Estatut d'Autonomia 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Autonomy_of_Catalon...), it was clear that it was all a farce. Anti-Catalanism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catalanism) and other attitudes / reactions from many parts of Spain towards Catalonia lead to this. It is way too easy for political parties to get votes around Spain by stirring anger towards Catalonia... I think most catalans would be happy remaining in Spain if their language, culture, traditions and pockets were respected. But that's just not what Spain wants Catalonia for.
> Spain is just Castille and a bunch of other regions conquered by force
Hem... not and not. Marriage arrangement is not the same as violence necessarily
Nobody has been beaten for "casting a vote" in this country in many, many time. That scam was not even a real election and the desired results were rigged from the start.
Please, stop with the Franco bullshit. You were not the only Spanish that suffered in the civil war.
Were referendum voters not beat? Is this also an hallucination? That was just unjustifiable. Legal or not, Spain left the catalans who want to decide their future no other choice than to organize a mock referendum. This is what happens when you deny peoples rights for that long. And after seeing how the Spanish government reacted on its own peaceful citizens, how would anyone want to stay?
Nobody said Catalonia was the only one suffering during the dictatorship, lots of people from many places in Spain did. And I am not sure why they want to stay in, especially seeing how certain things will never change.
Careful 'what you wish. You want options.
If all your rooms get painted green but your colour is white...
There is no "love it or leave it" if there is no "leave it". Existence should not be a bed of Procuste - least you accept that /I/ take the measures and /you/ submit to them.
Surely there will be some place where "debate" is not different from "pooling", and they will be as comfortable there as we find it a buggery.
Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1886698-otto-von-bismarck-i-am-...
Amazing story.
Also, they have a tribunal that has two powers, and another one that decides if money has been well spent, if they decide otherwise you get to pay with your properties.
Amazing country, and is part of EU.
And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia. Those political leaders are arrested. Police is sent in to stop the protests. Protests are suddenly called "the rebellion", people are arrested, the representatives of the indipendance movement have to flee Spain. Later it comes out that the police was seizing ballet boxes during the election.
Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region so they have to move out from there.
So much more bad stuff has happened around that.
I am just wondering - where is the outcry? I cannot stop overseeing the paralls to other conflicts around the world, very hot conflicts.
> vote with over 80% for their indipendence from Spain
The 2017 referendum vote ended up with 90% of votes for independence. However, only 43% of the census participated, mainly due to the fact that this referendum was not binding at all, and wasn't even "legal". Other referendums have had similar results.
> And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia.
I think regular media picked up on that with no issues. I remember reading detailed articles on Politico or The Guardian, for example.
> Those political leaders are arrested.
They were arrested not for explaining their goal of independence but because they exceeded their functions and competences when they held the referendum. Now, there's a lot of discussion to be had about the political motivations of those charges and the punishments, but I think the reality that they used public resources to hold a referendum that they legally couldn't hold is undeniable. That was the trigger, not just saying they wanted independence.
> Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region so they have to move out from there.
That's not exactly what happened. Some companies legally moved headquarters from Catalonia to other regions, and some new investments were reduced, but those are mainly motivated by the legal insecurity about what was going to happen (and also, take into account that businesses are led by people with their own ideologies and biases of the situation). But it hasn't been that impactful overall.
> I cannot stop overseeing the paralls to other conflicts around the world, very hot conflicts.
For starters, other than the police action in the referendum, there's been a remarkable lack of violence on both sides. I mean, every 11th of september there are demonstrations for independence around the Diada (day of Catalonia) celebrations, political calls to action and such, and those things are not repressed. So I don't think pointing parallels to "very hot conflicts" is warranted.
This happened in Montreal. It was the business capital of Canada until the referendums. Now Toronto is.
So it goes.
If the constitution says that calling for secession is a criminal offence, it follows that holding an indendence referendum is also criminal. I'd argue that a constitution that criminalises campaigning for secession is a bad constitution, and that the central government should have (a) staged the referendum and (b) campaigned in it.
> and that the central government should have (a) staged the referendum and (b) campaigned in it.
When some people think that giving Catalonia enough entity to even consider independence is too much, a referendum is out of the question. If the central government had been open to hold the referendum they would also have been open to previous smaller claims from Catalonia that would probably have satisfied enough people and dropped support for independency.
And it's not an hypothesis: polls and parliament votes have shown for years that the support for independence (or for independentist parties) has been fairly stable at around 45-50%. Support for a referendum vote has been wider (up to 70-80% depending on the poll and how you count some party's positions) but similarly fairly stable over the years.
Surely if people thought the referendum "didn't matter", then they'd be less, not more likely to cast a ballot? I'd say that 40% is a pretty strong vote, in those circumstances (and given the risk of being beaten up by riot police).
It was practically guaranteed that the votes would be replaced later in the cardboard urns guarded exclusively by the separatists. The obvious plan was to drag as many millions of people as possible to vote and then use this number as new upper limit to made up a separatist support number (see? 80% of this new cipher voted separatist, we counted the votes ourselves, [invented a number], and this is two million more of supporters than before, so I'm right. Now lets negotiate how money you own me to not secede).
It must be noticed that they printed 10 millions of ballots, for a pool of voters much lower. Why they needed to have like two ballots for each possible vote?... well, fill the dots.
The only good move in that situation is avoid voting
In most places that wouldn't even be considered a valid referendum.
That is not true. Those are the numbers given by the independentist people themselves, with some people voting 5 times as there were no the required warrantees(as it was an illegal referendum).
The real numbers are those that supported an independentist party for the local elections, over 50% of the electorate.
Another reason for the lack of support is that other countries don’t want to create a precedent for similar breakaways. Catalonia would have a hard time joining the EU for this reason (similarly Scotland if they were to secede).
The second reason hints at the explanation for the difference to other regions of the world. There is no hard and fast rule to apply to see why self-determinism is championed for one group but admonished for others. The sentiment is wholly a consequence of the motivations of the country in question and other interested nations.
Any moral rhetoric deployed by nations to justify policy is just post hoc rationalization of the underlying pragmatic decision making calculus. I think most people implicitly understand this. Which is why I’m incredulous when people act surprised by governments acting hypocritically
If California tried to leave the USA, the American government would do anything in their power to keep them from leaving. This is still quite different, as Spain isn't as loosely structured a government as the USA, but it's equally preposterous from a government point of view.
There's quite a lot of nationalism in Spanish politics; when Franco died, there was no proper national reconciliation. Catalunya suffered quite badly in the Civil War and afterwards, and there should have been something like the SA Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead, they restored the monarchy, which was, as you'd expect, nationalist.
Indeed. But some countries handle independence movements with more grace than others. It's perfectly legitimate for a region to ask for independence. If the host nation is graceful, and (for example) allows independence referendums, a civil war becomes much less likely.
The host nation always fights back; but passing ten-year imprisonment sentences on the leaders of the secessionists isn't very graceful. Sending paramilitaries to beat up prrotestors and voters isn't graceful at all. A little more "graceful" is to resort to dirty tricks; Alex Salmond, former leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, was dragged into court on trumped-up sexual harrassment charges.
...formerly known as "Spanish Sahara". That's old-fashioned colonialism.
That doesn't morally justify forcing thousands or millions of people to remain in a political situation that they are opposed to.
When the southern states used their democratic institutions to secede, and then the North invaded 'to preserve the union', that was imperialism. Waging an imperial war and then freeing the slaves of the conquered doesn't retroactively make your war a just, non-imperialist one. It just makes you an imperialist whose moral views on slavery are superior to those of the people whom you conquered. But you're still an imperialist.
Now, if the Yanks had actually engaged in a moral crusade to free the slaves, that'd be one thing--but they didn't. If you think they did, then I'm guessing your understanding of the civil war comes from your education by said Union, or from movies. If this is the case, read a history book (Battle Cry of Freedom is a good start) and you'll find it impossible to believe that the Union fought the war to free the slaves. That the "moral crusade" nonsense is still peddled throughout the United States is a simple matter of the winners writing the history books (and nobody wanting to be seen sympathizing with slavers).
And since I'm certain you'll follow up with that tired old canard about the South starting the war at Ft. Sumpter, I'll provide you with the relevant history in advance:
0) Abraham Lincoln wins the 1860 presidential election on November 8, 1860. 1) On November 10, the South Carolina General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the people of S.C. to elect a commission to determine whether the state should secede. 2) Convention delegates were democratically elected on December 6. 3) These duly elected delegates convened in Columbia on December 17th. 4) They voted unanimously for secession. 5) The South Carolina General Assembly declared their independence on December 24. 6) At this point, American troops occupy Fort Sumpter, which at this point is foreign soil. 6) On Jan 9, the US attempts to reinforce the fort. They are prevented from doing so when Confederate artillery fires on the resupply ship. 7) On Jan 31, 1861, Governor Pickens demands the surrender of Fort Sumpter. 8) Lincoln sends multiple ships, with hundreds of soldiers and sailors, to reinforce the fort. 9) On April 11, knowing Lincoln plans to reinforce the occupying force, the Rebs once again demand the surrender of the fort. The commanding officer refused (then tried to play for time by making up conditions, which were refused). 10) At this point, American troops have been occupying foreign soil for ~4 months, and are effectively signaling their intent to stay indefinitely. 11) On April 12, the Rebs start shelling the fort. They shell it for 34 hours, then the Americans surrender. 12) After their surrender, before the Americans took down their flag, the Confederates allowed them to honor the flag with a 100 gun salute. One of the Yanks' guns misfired, killing Edward Galloway--the only American soldier who died.
You should feel free to say "well they were slavers, so fuck them". That's perfectly valid! But facts is facts, and the Civil War was imperialism.
Neither the north nor the south can really be considered democratic institutions by modern standards - less than half of their population could vote at the time of the civil war (women's suffrage) - and far less than half in the south (millions of slaves). The country as a whole elected Lincoln, and the southern states (via their mostly-undemocratically-elected leaders) rejected that slightly-more-democratically-sourced outcome. The democratically-elected leader and his political party then brought more democracy to the entire country by emancipating the enslaved and subsequently gave them (the men, anyway) the right to vote. Whether or not that was their intention at the outset doesn't change the fact that the north brought more democracy, which the south hated, and continues to hate.
So much for those vaunted democratic institutions you claim to hold so dear.
The North had broader suffrage than the South. The North freed the slaves after the war, and gave Black men the right to vote. And the Civil War was still imperialism. Do you disagree?
You should inform yourself before you talk. In Catalonia NEVER over 80% of the population voted for independence. This is BS.
What happened is that a 50 something percent of the votes(not of the population) wanted to impose independence over the laws of the parliament that require at least 2/3 majorities for anything substantial.
>And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia.
More BS. How many people died on that rebellion? How many died in the US Black lives matter incidents? How many people die on South Africa incidents each year?
>Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region
Nobody hold a gun against business but the independentists. They just could move freely around national territory, protecting their assets against radicals.
This is whataboutism, I don't see how those are relevant to the situation in spain
The closest parallel is probably Quebec in Canada, for what it's worth. Highly contentious. One thing I've learnt is that if I want to keep my friends in these places, I don't mention politics.
Because it was one-sided and those not agreeing with it didn't accept its legitimacy, hence not showing up to vote
You don't just put a ballot box outside of the provisions of the state and call that a "referendum"
In those circumstances, it's hardly surprising that independence campaigners broke a law.
There were huge protests at the time, ala https://www.nbcnews.com/video/barcelona-protests-escalate-ov...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41229486
This happened very recently. I still vividly remember the stories on the radio. The artifacts are online & visible if you really cared to look. I'm not quite sure of the point of questions like this.
The truth is that independence is near 50/50 overall, and always less in Barcelona.
Both sides provoke each other, the independence parties also sabotage actual dialogue and continuously create conflict out of thin air.
So I would give Catalonia a legal binding referendum... with a requirement of at least a 66% vote in favour. For each person that wants to remain, there would be two that don't; and if you are at that point, it's probably better just to let them go. Being a politician, I would surely try to at least round it up to 70%.
They would never get 66% of the vote. If it looks risky, I could send the police in the Looney Tunes ship again... to vote!
And if they refuse my offer... well, it's way easier to argue "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it". Right now, Catalans have the easy "freedom" argument.
This would change nothing. And they would never do a referendum on those terms. The whole thing, politically, is not meant to actually go through.
The alternative was to send police to fire rubber bullets, with somebody losing an eye (https://www.spainenglish.com/2019/10/01/eye-rubber-bullet-ca...), against people that wanted to... vote.
Rubber bullets happen to be a weapon invented by the British to use during The Troubles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_bullet). But even the British, the inventors, stopped used them. In fact, the Catalan local police were also banned from using them and were shot in Catalonia only because it came from the non-Catalan police (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalonia-pr...).
(Not to mention all the other images of police violence).
Being able to say "I have given them the referendum, they are not taking it" vs giving the other party such a great narrative "That's why we want independence. We are more civilized than them. They are aggressive animals." changes something.
Yes, sending the riot police was a very, very bad move in terms of defusing a conflict. Literally all they had to do is let them run their big show, and expectedly declare the result void. At most, prosecute the politicians that unilaterally proclaimed independence in the parliament based on that puppet referendum.
However, the political party in power at the time, Partido Popular, knew that they would win some (right/fascist) votes everywhere else in Spain by exceeding force in Catalonia, in a kind of "scorched earth" move. They historically got almost no votes represented out of Catalonia anyway.
92% with a turnout of 43%. Hardly a resounding win for the independence side. Since the referendum was arguably illegal, a lot of people voted by staying home.