Catalonia: Empty classrooms and thousands on the streets against repression

Students in Catalonia marching against Francoist repression, photo by Sindicat d'Estudiants

Students in Catalonia marching against Francoist repression, photo by Sindicat d’Estudiants   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

On 26 April the classrooms in schools and universities in Catalonia were empty as students demanded democracy and freedom for the people of Catalonia and refused to accept the anti-democratic attacks which threaten to destroy our rights.

More than 10,000 young people marched in Barcelona and hundreds more in other towns and cities in Catalonia.

We were demanding the freedom of political prisoners and the end of article 155 (the imposition of direct rule by the Spanish state in Catalonia). We also denounced the criminalisation and persecution of the Committees in Defence of the Republic and of all those who have raised their voices against this anti-democratic offensive.

Today the People’s Party (PP, the major party of the governing coalition and prime minister Mariano Rajoy) and its allies imprison and persecute people for having pro-independence ideas, but they also begin to do so against those who denounce corruption, the injustice of the PP government and the role of the monarchy.

For this reason, the Sindicato de Estudiantes in the rest of the Spanish state actively mobilised support for our Catalan comrades. We organised protest rallies in the Basque country, as well as assemblies and stoppages in the rest of the state.

We would also like to thank the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) which organised solidarity actions with our strike internationally.

There is no repression which can stop a mobilised people!