Posted on 11/05/2014 4:12:42 PM PST by mojito
Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia vowed Tuesday to defy both the central government and the country's highest court and proceed with a much-disputed weekend vote on whether to secede from Spain.
Hours earlier, Spain's Constitutional Court ordered Catalonia to freeze its plans for an independence vote, scheduled for Sunday. It was the second time the court issued an order siding with Madrid, which considers any Catalan independence vote illegal.
But Catalan leaders said they would not back down.
"Everything is all set for Nov. 9," Francesc Homs, a spokesman for the Catalan regional government, said at a news conference. "We are maintaining our participatory process. We couldn’t say this any clearer -- and we’re doing so regardless of the consequences."
Homs said the Catalan government would use the Constitutional Court to sue the central government "for threatening the right ... to freedom of speech."
The Spanish government has not specified what legal consequences Catalan leaders, poll workers or voters might face Sunday, when they go to vote. But Madrid has reportedly readied thousands of Civil Guard police officers to travel to Catalonia this weekend if needed.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Civil war time.
Spain requires Catalan taxes. They pay much more than they receive.
Its broke anyway, without them its desperate.
One of a few reasons I have no respect for Spain. The Spanish people and government seem to have an imperialist attitude
An adjacent region in France is also part of the historical entity of Catalonia, called “Catalogne Nord.
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Catalonia
Its more complicated than that.
Catalonia was an equal partner in exploiting the Spanish empire. Spain was actually assembled peacefully through a union of crowns, including what is now Catalonia.
Spain also historically gave Catalonia and other manufacturing regions a protected market, etc. So until quite recently, and barring a couple of episodes from the late 17th-early 18th centuries, there wasn’t much nationalism there, not even during the Civil war of 1936. The Basques have always been more nationalist and separatist, they took the opportunity of 1936 to try for outright independence and some kept up a terrorist\guerilla war for decades.
Catalonia was not like that.
What’s new now is modern economic facts. If there were general prosperity in Spain, as there has been for many decades, one would not have Catalan separatism.
Northern Catalonia where the girls are warm, gonna hear my sweet baby say “Keep on Rockin’ me, baby”
“Northern Catalonia where the girls are warm, gonna hear my sweet baby say “Keep on Rockin’ me, baby””
Maybe so. My interest has been in a matter of genealogy, since I traced ancestors back to that possible origin.
And that makes me a potential Hispanic!! The technicality is whether they came from France, or Spain?
“Do you go by Jean Claude or Juan Carlos?”
Two brothers came to Maine in 1671 from the English Channel Island of Jersey. Their names were George and Maturin Ricart, Ricarte, Ricard, Riccar.
Once in Maine, the family surname was changed to Ricker, a common practice to “Anglicize” one’s identity, for advantages that might provide.
Throughout the world today, the name Maturin is Spanish (or Catalonian). Catalonia is normally thought of as Spanish, but partly from France as well.
I wonder if they were Protestants or Jews who fled from Catalonia and the the Spanish or French inquisitions, to safety in Jersey?
Anyway the two brothers were killed by Indians in 1706. By then of course they had children, and it is from George that I descend.
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