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Ousted Catalan Leader Carles Puigdemont Arrested in Germany
Ousted Catalan President Carles Puigdemont Arrested in Germany as EU Once Again Fails to Act Logically
Spain maintains an arrest warrant for ousted Catalan President Carles Puigdemont who had been living in exile in Belgium. The controversial European Arrest Warrant (EAW) which notoriously requires little evidence of an actual crime in order to be issued, remains on the books after Spanish authorities initially sought to detain the man who declared Catalonia an independent republic on 27 October 2017.
Since then Madrid stripped Catalonia of its constitutional autonomy and called for new elections in which pro-independence parties won a majority, while the office of President of the Generalitat of Catalonia remains formally vacant. Puidgemont and his supporters continue to claim that he remains the legitimate Catalan leader. Nevertheless, Spain has largely been successful in quashing Catalonia’s very short lived independence, although legal battles over who should be the autonomous President of Catalonia persist.
Puigdemont had been in Finland when he learned that the authorities in Helsinki had agreed to detain him per the Spanish EAW. He quickly fled but was detained by German authorities on the Danish border. Spain faced international criticism for its heavy handed tactics against voters in the 1 October, 2017 referendum in which Catalans voted to secede from Spain. In spite of the peaceful vote and demonstrations by pro-independence Catalans, Spain’s infamous civil guard violently beat Catalan civilians throughout the prelude and aftermath of the vote.
The EU owes it to its citizens to see that Carles Puigdemont is treated with dignity as a man whose position in Spain is controversial, but one that is not violent. This is especially ironic as major EU powers backed the violent terrorist campaigns against the integrity of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, while many, particularly in Germany are sympathetic to Kurdish secessionist terrorist groups in Turkey, most notably the PKK. So while Germany supported the blood-soaked KLA in Yugoslavia and the blood-soaked PKK in Turkey, the largest state in the EU has seen fit to treat Carles Puigdemont like a menace, when even if one disagrees with his politics and his methods, no one could argue that he poses a danger to the life of anyone, anywhere.
Once again, the EU has let itself down at a moment when it could have served as an example for how to manage what ultimately is a political movement that renounces all forms of violence.
http://www.eurasiafuture.com/2018/03...act-logically/
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Originally Posted by Endovélico
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