“Amnesty cannot mean impunity; violence must be left out”

The PSOE rules out self-determination. Is the amnesty enough to invest Sánchez?

Point blank, no. No way. The result of 23-J forces us to talk about issues that have been prohibited until now, such as amnesty and self-determination. They are indissoluble. The amnesty does not in itself solve the problem, but the right to self-determination cannot be addressed while there is a repressive machinery of the State at full speed. Amnesty is a way to suspend the repression and it is not an option, it is a necessity.

Does the referendum have to be a ‘sine qua non’ condition?

The parties have their logics and their strategies. legitimate. But Òmnium we are not a party nor do we enter into the negotiation. It is up to us to press and convey the great consensus. And we have not moved, democracy and fundamental rights, and we must find the formulas that allow it to materialize.

The formula, for now, has been the dialogue table. Has it been useful?

All instruments are valid. The problem is that the State has set the table, but has refused to bring it together and has vetoed topics. Now, for the first time in six years, arithmetic allows the state to recognize the conflict and address it politically.

Do pardons not imply an acknowledgment of the conflict?

Amnesty is an instrument of the Rule of Law to politically address something that to date has been addressed in the courts. It is a way of indirectly acknowledging that it was not a crime. The pardon is a measure of grace and eliminates the sentence, but not the crime. Amnesty, yes. It’s a state self-amendment.

But would an amnesty be being negotiated now without the pardons?

Probably not. It was a very important gesture that the State recognized, forced by the Council of Europe, that there is a political conflict that has to be resolved democratically. But the passage of time has shown that it was practically just a piece of paper. The dialogue table has offered pardons and the reform of the Criminal Code that eliminates sedition -an absolutely obsolete crime-, but which, on the other hand, toughens the repression against the right to protest.

He speaks of great consensus around the referendum, but the independence movement lost 700,000 votes compared to 2019.

It is unquestionable that there has been a decline in the independence vote, but although we are fewer, we are much more decisive.

To what do you attribute the fall?

There are many factors, but there has been a systematic and brutal strategy by the State to attack the independence movement by all means. Repression has its effects: disorientation, discouragement and the impossibility of drawing up a unitary strategy.

How does Òmnium account for those reprisalized by the ‘procés’?

There are 4,200 people and they are included in four blocks according to the repression they have suffered: police violence, judicial processes, administrative or accounting investigations and victims of police espionage. Not all are subject to amnesty. Only people prosecuted in court and victims of administrative and accounting processes would be eligible for amnesty. It is a quarter of the 4,200 that have been counted since October 2017. In the case of judicial and accounting, they have been counted since 2014, as a result of 9-N.

Does it include the president of Junts, Laura Borràs, convicted of prevarication and document falsification?

She is considered a spy in the Pegasus case.

Should the police officers prosecuted for 1-O be amnestied?

In the 2021 proposal we do not include them, relying on the international regulations of the UN and the ECtHR. There is a 2009 document from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that says that amnesties can never mean impunity for acts of the State that have led to human rights violations, from genocide to police violence. The 1977 amnesty is a bad international example because it consolidated impunity.

What precedent does it follow?

France has made four amnesties in the last decades and in them it tries to respond to the violation of the human rights of the victims, not to the recognition of the actions of the perpetrators. And there are all the cases of Latin America. An amnesty can never endorse State acts that have led to human rights violations.

There is a problem when defining certain acts. How do you define what is a crime of injury or an attack on authority in the face of amnesty?

Internationally, the right to protest is included within the amnesty – the right to assembly, demonstration, expression… – and common crimes that have to do with violence and acts of State that violate fundamental rights are left out.

Would the riots then be outside the amnesty?

No, they would stay completely inside, to the extent that riots are an exercise of the right to protest. Cut a road, interrupt communications, circulations or infrastructures; prevent free movement at the border; The occupation of the streets in a city is an exercise of fundamental rights. But violence is not a fundamental right, it falls within common crimes.

Would it be amnestiable to have thrown a bottle at a police officer?

It is a specific case, but the cases in which there is certification of violence fall within common crimes, so they are outside the amnesty.

What do you think of ERC and Junts negotiating with the PSOE separately?

A joint action allows more bargaining power. Now there is no strategic unity, but strategic coincidence occurs. We have seen it at the Congress Table and now, in both cases, amnesty is put on the table.

Junts has not revealed if he will meet with Feijóo. Should I do it?

We will never enter to say what the parties have to do. They have legitimacy to do what they consider, to achieve the objectives for which they have been voted.

Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu proposed a reinterpretation of the Constitution in order to provide itself with greater self-government. What do you think?

We do not want to reform the Spanish State, we want to get out of it.

Are you afraid that this Diada will face the independence movement again?

That of 2022 was not optimal because it was marked by the logic of confrontation. The independence movement is extraordinarily plural, nobody is superfluous here. Òmnium has been working on the demonstration for months so that no independentista feels excluded.

Should ‘president’ Pere Aragonès attend the ANC demonstration?

Maximum respect. We are nobody to say if you have to go.

Is the agreement on Catalan in Congress and the petition in Europe enough?

Anything that contributes to the normalization of the language is good. It is an anomaly that the State has sloppyly prevented its use in the Cortes and has systematically refused to take its recognition in Europe. It is welcome if, finally, the State also amends itself.

Related news

Is the Government doing enough for Catalan?

No. Catalan institutions have to do much more than they are doing to reverse the decline in the social use of Catalan. We have provided four reports to the Government and we have proposed measures in the National Pact for Language. They affect all Departments and there are things that are not being done.