- The National Court of Spain has charged La Direct’s editor, Jesús Rodríguez, and eleven others, including Carles Puigdemont, former president, and Marta Rovira, general secretary of ERC, for protests against the 2019 ruling. The journalist understands the cause as a “response” of the state’s sewer to his journalistic activity, according to La Direct. Jesús Rodríguez has collaborated on several occasions for ARGIA.
The judge of the National Court of Spain, Manuel García-Castellón, has decided to charge Jesús Rodríguez, editor of La Directo, one of the most prominent Catalan journalists for his research against the state sewers. The Tsunami is accused of being related to the activities of the Democrat tico.Este movement emerged in 2019, following the Supreme Court ruling against the organization of the referendum on 1 October 2017, a nonviolent movement that led thousands of people to practice civil disobedience, such as when they blocked the international airport of Barcelona.Es charged with protests against it.
García-Castellón has placed the activities of the Democratic Tsunami in the “framework of terrorism”: “They endangered the physical integrity of many security forces and bodies: demonstrators, passengers and workers of the facility”. He relates them to the death of a French citizen, recovering the case of a citizen who died of heart attack in one of his protests.
For his part, journalist Jesús Rodríguez has understood prosecution as a “response” of the “sewers of the State” to his journalistic activity and considers it an “attack” on him: “It is a direct attack on my right to information from multiple sources.”
ERC and PSOE Agreement
The news comes in full negotiation of the Aminist law. At the moment, in the agreement established by the ERC and the PSOE, La Direct states that “deadly terrorist crimes would be outside the protection of the future law”.
Immediate reactions
The inclusion of the journalist in the list of defendants has provoked a “anger” between professionals and groups related to the world of communication and information. Among others, Journalist Group Ramón Barnils has given “all his support” to the journalist and has denied that actions related to the Democratic Tsunami “had to do with terrorism.”
Apparently, some information professionals have shown similar attitudes, such as the director of Vicent Partal Villaweb or the deputy director of Enric Borras Ara. Little less, the Iridia Centre for the Defence of Human Rights has noted: “Accusing a terrorist journalist is an obvious attack on freedom of information.”