Hacker News Reader

Comment by felsokning | Hacker News Reader

> This individual is suspected of being a member of the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s police force) and of using their internal knowledge to assist the Democratic Tsunami movement.

...and...

> The requests were made under the guise of anti-terrorism laws, despite the primary activities of the Democratic Tsunami involving protests and roadblocks, which raises questions about the proportionality and justification of such measures.

As I understand it, Catalonia has long desired for independence[1]. Is the Democratic Tsunami movement something different, entirely? If not, can someone fill-in the blanks of how vying for independence (in this case) gets umbrella'ed under terrorism?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement

Edit: Accidental caps-lock on a word. My bad.

View on HN

The Democratic Tsunami was/is(?) more of a pure action based protest group lead by an anonymous leader structure. The leaders were/are probably certain leader figures within the independence seeking community; but that is just a speculation on my part.

Its biggest action was probably at the Barcelona Airport in October 2019, a protest a couple of years after the Catalan independence election in October 2017. The election itself was deemed unconstitutional by the Spanish government. The registered voters/turnout of this election was 43.03%; where 92.01% voted for separation from Spain and 7.99% voted to stay within Spain –– see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe... –– but this was not a normal election by any means (read the link for more).

Typically the ANC –– see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblea_Nacional_Catalana –– has been the leading organization in the independence movement. They have been organizing big independence rallies etc. and the actions has been peaceful (from what I've read and seen). The Democratic Tsunami based protests were different in this regard, where more direct confrontation was more the norm. From what I have read Democratic Tsunami is not particularly active at the moment, but of course this might change.

They did extreme protests like road blockages, and some other stuff which the government considered sabotage and so pursued them with anti-terrorist legislation.

Also some members were arrested apparently planning even more extreme things.

The IRA and ETA were vying for independence too...

That said, I think it's crazy how much time the government wastes on this when the cities are full of petty criminals acting with impunity. Someone was stabbed to death outside my apartment just in a robbery and yet nothing changes.

Independence is a political goal. Terrorism is a means to achieve political goals. (Though I don't think it has a good track record of being successful at that.) It's not that unusual for people to combine the two and plan terrorist attacks against the state they want to be independent from. (In this case it appears the investigation concerns a suspected attack plot targeting the Spanish king.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com