In recent weeks, several social and political leaders of the case are being tried by the courts of the National Court. What reactions are emerging in society?

It is carrying out extensive monitoring. It is very common to see people with earbuds in the ear and follow the judgment live while performing everyday tasks. With closeness, with responsibility, even with a point of frustration. And waiting for the outcome, both for the prisoners and for the social and political consequences they may have.

Do you have the feeling that you are winning the battle of the story?

I always remember the words of Marta Rovira before leaving exile: “I cannot tolerate feeling locked in my people and among my words.” He wasn't physically a prisoner, but he couldn't express what he meant because he felt threatened. That's what we're seeing. We are in a situation where civil and political rights are suspended, everything that is said must be understood within that framework.

You are suffering extensive and intensive repression, unknown in Catalonia in the last decades.

In the specific container for the Basque Country “Everything is ETA” there was everything; in which we have been built for Catalonia, anything can be rebellion or sedition. If the judiciary interprets that a position wants to revolutionize state structures, or transform the autonomic framework, it can be a motive for accusing sedition or rebellion. This mental structure is gradually consolidating, although resistance is also very present. Sometimes it has a more public reflex, sometimes it's more clandestine, or it happens at the neighborhood level or village level outside the media.

One of the variables that made the October event possible was the union between the main political and social actors. It looks like a broken day.

The analysis of a sector of independence is that there is not enough force to take a step forward and look face to face with the State. It would be the time for alliances at the state level, with Podemos and some sectors of the PSOE, while developing the energies for a new step. In recent months it has been especially the vision of CKD. As the trial progresses, the choice of a harsh sentence is strengthened, and that position loses its meaning. The results of the state elections will be of great importance in the Spanish State. Will the Catalan political forces have the capacity to influence? Will the parties on the right and the extreme right be able to form government? Will the PSOE be put to the vote of Citizens? The possibility of a new 155 is there, and it is a widespread conviction that if it is reached it would be deeper than the previous one and longer in time. Would Catalan society accept it? I note many uncertainties in the management and viability of this scenario.

The Union was a bottom-up process, at a high level that resulted in the attitude of the citizens. Are there social muscles?

There's strength. Last year’s calls have brought hundreds of thousands of people together in the Biscay capital. That shows that mobilization is alive, that it is strong. It does not rule out that fatigue, disorientation and frustration are also accumulating. We are not in the situation in autumn 2017, where everything seemed possible, all through mobilisation and political initiative, over and above the state’s repression. What I imagined possible now looks much more complex. We've felt the consequences of repression on our skin, we've learned that it's not free, that there are consequences.

Let's look to the left. Many people and movements who were not considered independent defended the referendum and the independence process. They recognized him other transformative potentialities. What are the current positions?

It seems to me that it is not only maintained, it is opened up. The space of Podemos and Comune is dispersing and fragmenting, as some sectors of this world are adding to the space of independence. By pure democratic conviction: as repression stabilizes, the more the right to decide and the agreed referendum is denied, the weaker the position of the Community's space. In the absence of sound arguments and clear positions, more and more people in that world move into the CUP or ERC spaces. This is indicated by the surveys. Positions in favour of independence are increasing, albeit gradually.

The independence left made a great effort to link the process to a more general social transformation, to link popular political sovereignty with other sovereignties: economic, personal, ecological…

That is absolutely in progress. A sector of the Catalan population is linking the hegemonic neoliberal economic model to the Spanish State and repression. Many have made a transformation that we would hardly believe in the worldview. So important, that the response to the frustration of the inability to implement the political mandate of 1 October in the Republic has led to the daily struggle: Leaving Endesa and enrolling in Som Energia; taking money out of Caixa or BBVA and putting it into ethical banking… These small daily transformations have more and more visibility. The struggle for social transformation is closely linked to independence and the political framework.

Now we turn our gaze to the independence right.

I defend a thesis: the world of right-wing independentism is the one that has undergone the most profound transformation in this process; it is the one that has suffered the most fragmentations, restructuring and ideological innovations. As the process deepens in independence and social transformation, some members of this classical bourgeois right have disappeared from the political direction of this space: Duran i Lleida, Felip Puig… are people of Convergence who have approached the Socialist Party, Citizens or the PP. This is very important, because sometimes the tests are based on the realities of ten years ago. This political space has experienced a total convulsion.

At the internal level, however, there are still different sensitivities. The political action of those in Brussels and in exile every day has more influence in Catalonia. With the electoral lists it has been found that the Puigdemont and Torra sector has imposed itself on the leaders and media responsible for the PDeCAT. Does that mean that the PDeCAT or Crida space has become more left-wing? I do not dare to say that, but I believe that repression has increased disobedient attitudes and reduced pactists. Many of the economic and political bridges with the state have been broken.

In such a complicated situation, it is not easy to reconcile short and long looks.

We're kind of stuck in everyday life: trials, elections, repression. This makes it difficult to look at some actors in the long term, but it is consistent with their attitude, because they do not want to give up the founding moment of the referendum. Giving up that framework is dangerous. This may be the strengthening of more enabling sectors that do not want major changes and rethinking in the economic and social status quo. The defence of the long-term thesis may also be behind the will not to change anything, that is in some sectors of the PdeCAT. I believe that the frustration of going back would be greater than that generated by the current framework of repression.

You've been in journalism for many years. How has the communication map of Catalonia been transformed?

It is a generalized change in the ways in which communication is consumed: from the written press to the digital press. The number of people who follow the current situation minute by minute from their mobile phone is very high. This poses new challenges for journalism: whether this almost immediate information has quality and is transformative or not; whether it contributes to reflection; whether we need elaborate and rested content, offering moments of better quality reading. Paper information has become a fetish, limited to moments of “I get to read”. But paper reading has more impact and transformation in the reader.

Are they good times for alternative communication projects?

We see this both in our project and in the evolution of others. How subscriptions are going up, how the communicative culture is changing: understanding that if you don't pay for the information you'll pay for others, and that those who have a lot of money will favor the information to be favorable to your interests. That's why the community of readers that keeps the project through subscription is expanding.

They have been charged with informing two journalists, one from Hala Bedi and one from Argia. These are not isolated cases. What health does freedom of information have in the Catalan countries?

The reports prepared by the Grup de Periodistes Ramón Barnils and the Iridia human rights centre have recently been presented at a press conference. The report analyses the evolution of attacks on freedom of expression and information in the Basque Country and Navarre. Dozens of attacks over the two years show that we are at a complex time of information and communication. There are people who do not want to be informed about certain issues and events, and the pressure is increasing. Sometimes it happens within the media, the addresses are directed to the journalist. On other occasions, directly against the media, by the hand of police officers, judges or specific groups. At that press conference the case of a journalist, who has been arrested, was explained. He is being asked for four years in prison for an alleged injury to an riot police officer who was allegedly reporting the eviction of a building he was in. It is an example of widespread police practice. Being accredited is a source of aggression for some policemen. They are journalists wearing jacket and bangle, precisely when it comes to an accreditation agreed between the professional associations of journalists and the Department of the Interior of the Government of Spain. It is not a system error: it is a coordinated action between multiple powers that seek to silence those who document the facts.

Is there an answer from the sector?

There is a very strong and orderly response between journalists and photojournalists, with exceptions. The defence of the profession and the non-acceptance of these measures are widespread. Every time a journalist suffers aggression, great solidarity is activated, both from the world of journalism and from society in general. It is a very conscious support.

Why are citizen and alternative communication projects such as Hala Bedi, ARGIA or La Directa necessary?

They are necessary because they are not alternatives. At this point in the journalistic history, it is the media that we call alternative that act according to the original values of the profession: contrast, rigor… I don’t say that everything do, but many do. However, some long-standing mass media, who claim to respond to journalism, do not respect the ethical and deontological code of the trade.