Splitting Spain? Catalans Rally ahead of Sunday Regional Elections

The streets of Barcelona, right now, are filled with thousands who've gathered to again call for their region's independence from Madrid's control. It's the last day of campaigning ahead of Sunday's vote which could, in the long run, change the map of Spain. RT's Anastasia Churkina is at the rally.

Spain: "The Mediterranean Corridor of Jihadism"

Samira Yerou was arrested March 7 at Barcelona's airport, on
suspicion of running a jihadist recruiting network.

GATESTONE INSTITUTE: The arrests have, once again, cast a spotlight on the problem of radical Islam in Catalonia, which has the largest Muslim population in Spain. The region is home to an estimated 465,000 Muslims, who account for more than 6% of the total Catalan population of 7.5 million.

Catalonia is home to approximately 465,000 Muslims. At least 10% of them are estimated to be "radicals" who are hardcore believers in the "doctrine of jihadism." — Jofre Montoto, Catalan terrorism analyst.

In February, the lower house of the Spanish Congress approved far-reaching changes to the country's penal code, as a way to combat Islamic extremism and support for the Islamic State.

Under the new law, anyone convicted of carrying out a terrorist attack will be subject to a life sentence (35 years) without the possibility of parole. The law also calls for 20-year sentences for anyone convicted of supplying weapons to terrorists, or ten-year sentences for funding terror networks.

Spanish police have arrested a Moroccan woman on suspicion of running a jihadist recruiting network for the Islamic State.

Samira Yerou, 32, was arrested at Barcelona's El Prat airport on March 7 upon her arrival on a flight from Turkey, where authorities had detained her for trying illegally to enter Syria with her three-year-old son, a Spanish citizen.

Police say Yerou, who lives in Rubí, a Catalan town situated 15 kilometers north of Barcelona, disappeared in December 2014, while her son's father, a Moroccan-Spaniard, was away on a trip to Morocco. Spanish authorities issued an international warrant for Yerou's arrest.

In a statement, the Spanish Interior Ministry said Yerou had specialized in recruiting women from Europe and North Africa to join the Islamic State. She allegedly became interested in militant Islam after visiting Morocco during the summer of 2013, and later became radicalized through the Internet by "spending many hours consulting" jihadist websites. The boy, who was unharmed, has been returned to his father.

Yerou is one of at least 50 jihadists who have been arrested in Spain during the past twelve months alone. Most of the arrests have taken place in Catalonia and in Spain's North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. » | Soeren Kern | Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Russian Ambassadors 'Joked about Annexing Scotland'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A leaked recording purporting to be of envoys joking about adding Scotland, Alaska and Venice to Russia's conquest of Crimea is the latest salvo in the war of dirty tricks over Ukraine

The war of dirty tricks over the Ukraine crisis escalated on Friday with the leak of a conversation purporting to be of two Russian ambassadors joking about adding Scotland, Alaska, and Venice to Russia’s conquest of Crimea.

The expletive ridden conversation posted on Youtube features two voices said to be Igor Chubarov, the ambassador to Eritrea, and Sergei Bakharev, the ambassador to Zimbabwe and Malawi.

The voice labelled as Mr Chubarov’s congratulates Mr Bakharev on persuading Zimbabwe to back Russia’s position on Crimea at the UN, and goes on to joke about telling a European diplomat about future conquests.

“We’ve got Crimea, but that’s not ----ing all, folks. In the future we’ll take you ----ing Catalonia, Venice, as well as Scotland and Alaska,” the voice says.

The pair go on to add Miami and London to their hit list, noting that "Miamiland' is ----ing 95 percent Russian citizens." » | Roland Oliphant, Moscow and Tony Paterson, Berlin | Friday, April 04, 2014

Russians Petition for Return of Alaska »

Spain's Escalating Mosque Wars

GATESTONE INSTITUTE: "The rules of the city and the country are mandatory for everyone, and Mollet del Vallès will be uncompromising toward any kind of radicalism or blackmail." — Josep Monràs, Mayor of Mollet del Vallès, Spain

Police in Spain have forcibly removed Muslim activists from an illegal mosque in a small town in Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeastern Spain that is home to the largest Muslim population in the country.

The eviction ends -- for now, anyway -- a highly public one-year standoff in which Muslim immigrants in the Catalan town of Mollet del Vallès openly and aggressively challenged the authority of municipal officials to evaluate and determine the proper location of new mosques based on established urban planning regulations.

The dispute over the unauthorized mosque is the latest in a growing number of mosque-related conflicts resulting from efforts by towns and cities across Spain to relocate overfilled mosques from congested downtown areas to uninhabited industrial parks.

Catalan police ended the standoff in Mollet del Vallès on October 2 by conducting an early morning raid on the property, which was being illegally occupied by up to 50 Muslims from North Africa who were angry over a decision by the town council to prohibit the premises from being used as a mosque. » | Soeren Kern | Friday, October 11, 2013

Sister Teresa Forcades: Europe's Most Radical Nun

BBC: A Spanish nun has become one of Europe's most influential left-wing public intellectuals. This year, thousands have joined her anti-capitalist movement, which campaigns for Catalan independence, the reversal of public spending cuts and nationalisation of banks and energy companies.

As political headquarters go, the monastery of St Benet has got to be among the most beautiful and peaceful anywhere. To get there you must take a breath-taking drive up the sacred mountain of Montserrat.

Sister Teresa Forcades, the unlikely star of local television chat shows, Twitter and Facebook, had been worryingly hard to nail down. So great is the demand for her time and blessing, that her secretary's email here at the monastery, always returns an automatic reply that the inbox is full.

Sister Teresa seems always to be in at least two places at once. She is bright-eyed, confident, almost breezy. Her disarmingly perfect English - mastered during a few years at Harvard University - feels somehow out of place in the humble cloisters of this serene spot.

There's no politician quite like her. She's never without her nun's headdress, and says that everything she does is born of deep Christian faith and devotion. Yet, she has been strongly critical of the church and the men who run it.

Followers of her movement, Proces Constituent, which has signed up around 50,000 Catalans this year, are mainly non-believing leftists. She won't run for office, and says she won't create a political party, but she's undeniably a political figure on a mission - to tear down international capitalism, and change the map of Spain. » | Matt Wells, BBC World Service, Montserrat, Catalonia | Saturday, September 14, 2013

The Islamic Republic of Catalonia
GATESTONE INSTITUTE: "We will all vote for the Islamic parties because we do not believe in left and right. This will make us win local councils, and as we begin to accumulate power in the Catalan autonomous region, Islam will begin to be implemented." — Abdelwahab Houzi, Salafist preacher, Lleida.

A successful push for independence in the Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia would lead to the establishment of a country with the third-largest percentage of Muslims in Western Europe, just behind France and Belgium, and far ahead of Britain and Germany.

An independent Catalonia, with its capital in Barcelona, would also be home to the largest concentration of radical Islamists in Europe; it would emerge as ground-zero for Salafi-Jihadism on the continent and become one of the top incubators for Islamist terrorism in the West.

Catalonia, historically one of the wealthiest and most industrialized regions of Spain, has harbored a strong streak toward independence since medieval times, when Barcelona was a Mediterranean trade center with its own parliament. But the ongoing economic crisis in Spain has redoubled calls for Catalonian secession from Spain and the establishment of an independent state. » | Soeren Kern | Friday, October 12, 2012

Bullfighting Ban Ordered by Catalonia
THE TELEGRAPH: Catalan lawmakers have voted to ban bullfighting across the northeastern region striking a blow to aficionados of the most emblematic and controversial Spanish tradition.

Catalonia has only one functioning bullring in Barcelona. Photo: The Telegraph
The Parliament of Catalonia voted 68 in favour and 55 against with nine abstentions to abolish bullfighting on the grounds of animal cruelty ushering in the first outlawing of the tradition on mainland Spain.

The vote followed months of impassioned debate over the subject of bullfighting that pitted animal rights activists against the supporters of what is known as Spain's “national fiesta”.

Campaigners against the “cruel and unnecessary spectacle” hailed the result as a “historic victory” and one that they hoped would be taken up across other regions of Spain.

”Today five centuries of cruelty have ended because the people of Catalonia wanted it,” said Deborah Parris, a spokesman for anti-bullfighting group Prou! – meaning Enough!

”The suffering of animals in Catalan bullrings has been abolished once and for all. It has created a precedent we hope will be replicated in other democratic parliaments, in those regions and countries where such cruel bullfights are still allowed.” >>> Fiona Govan, in Barcelona | Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Catalonia Votes To Ban Bullfighting
SKY NEWS: Catalonia has become the first region in Spain to ban the country's foremost sport - bullfighting. Simon Newton reports.



NZZ ONLINE: Katalonien verbietet den Stierkampf: Entscheid mit 68 zu 55 Stimmen im Regionalparlament >>> sda/dpa/afp | Mittwoch, 28. Juli 2010

La montée d'un islam fondamentaliste inquiète les autorités catalanes en Espagne
LE MONDE: La vieille ferme abandonnée à l'entrée de Valls, petite ville près de Tarragone, a-t-elle été le siège d'un "tribunal islamique" au printemps dernier ? Les six hommes mis sous les verrous en novembre 2009 pour avoir condamné à mort une jeune Marocaine accusée d'adultère en application de la charia, viennent d'être remis en liberté sous caution. La jeune femme, aujourd'hui retournée au Maroc, ne s'est pas présentée aux convocations du juge d'instruction. Et le récit qu'elle avait fait de son enlèvement, puis de son jugement "par douze hommes en turban", suscite de sérieux doutes.

Pourtant, les mossos (la police de la Generalitat de Catalogne) l'avaient prise au sérieux, enquêtant pendant des mois avant de lancer leur coup de filet dans les milieux musulmans ultraconservateurs, très implantés dans la région tarragonaise. "Peut-être qu'il ne s'est rien passé, mais le fait que cela ait pu paraître plausible témoigne d'une construction de la peur autour du salafisme", estime l'anthropologue José Moreiras, de l'université Rovira i Virgili de Tarragone.

La Catalogne s'inquiète de la montée du discours fondamentaliste au sein de la communauté musulmane, forte de 350 000 membres, dont 250 000 Marocains. Sur les 180 mosquées recensées, plus de cinquante seraient contrôlées par des associations liées au salafisme. "Cela ne nous fait pas peur, mais nous sommes en alerte car des personnes passent des messages de non-intégration et d'hostilité au pays d'accueil", admet Mohammed Chaib, député socialiste au Parlement catalan.

Ce musulman d'origine marocaine plaide pour une meilleure reconnaissance de la communauté musulmane qui doit encore, après trente ans de présence, se contenter de garages, de caves ou d'anciens bâtiments industriels comme lieux de culte. Aucune municipalité n'a accepté la construction d'une mosquée. "Il y a aussi une crise dans le modèle d'organisation de l'islam en Catalogne, ajoute José Moreiras. Ce vide d'organisation, de doctrine et d'autorité au sein de la communauté favorise le discours simple et structuré du salafisme." >>> Jean-Jacques Bozonnet, Envoyé special du Monde, Tarragone | Jeudi 25 Février 2010

Catalonians Get Taken In by the ‘Religion of Peace’ in Big Numbers
Photo courtesy of IslamOnline
ISLAMONLINE.NET: MADRID — Thousands of Spaniards, especially intellectuals, academics and anti-globalization activists, are finding comfort and solace in Islam.

"Embracing Islam is on the rise despite ferocious Western media campaigns," Abdul-Nour Brado, the head of the Islamic Society of Catalonia, told IslamOnline.net.

Estimates suggest that between 3,000 to 4,000 Catalonians accepted Islam recently.

"The numbers could be much higher than that," Barado believes.

Local media reports have noted that intellectuals, academics and anti-globalization activists make up the bulk of the new Muslim reverts in Spain.

Catalonians first embraced Islam in the 1960s and their numbers were quite few.

Now thousands of Catalonians are believed to have joined the fold of Islam.

The Spanish autonomous province of Catalonia covers an area of 31,950 km² with an official population of 6.3 million, and its capital is Barcelona.

It is home to around 100,000 Moroccan immigrants, which is attributed to the geographical proximity with Morocco.

The southern European country has an estimated Muslim minority of about at 1.5 million out of a total population of 40 million.

Islam is the second religion after Christianity and has been recognized through the law of religious freedom, issued in July 1967. Islam Comforts Spanish Intellectuals >>> By Al-Amin Andalusi, IOL Correspondent | September 25, 2008

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