Journalist Jesús Rodríguez travels to exile in the face of the persecution of the National Audience
- On November 6, the judge of the National Court of Spain, Manuel García-Castellón, sued twelve people for the Tsunami Democratico case. Three people fled abroad this Thursday, including the journalist of Jesús Rodríguez La Directa.
Like Jesús Rodríguez, the director of Òmnium Cultura, Oleger Serra, and the businessman of Girona, Josep Campmajó, have taken the path towards exile. The remaining defendants are: Carles Puigdemont, Marta Rovira, Ruben Wagensberg, Oriol Soler, Josep Lluís Alay, Xavier Vendrell, Marta Molina, Jaume Cabani, and Nicola Flavio Giulio Foglia,
La Directo reports that this week Judge García-Castellón has given the defendants a period of 24 hours to provide them with the addresses of their homes in the National Court. The three who have taken their way abroad have not done so and the judge orders the Civil Guard to look for them.
Rodríguez La Directa, a well-known media journalist, has been investigating abuses by police forces and infiltrations of the police or intelligence services in social movement groups for 18 years. The repression carried out by Procés followed closely as a journalist.
The journalist support team has announced in the Barcelona district of Sants that Rodríguez will meet the refuge in Switzerland. After the persecution of Procés, there are already four refugees in Switzerland: former ERC secretary general Marta Rovira, ERC deputy Ruben Wagensberg, Òmnium director Oleguer Serra and Rodríguez himself.
This was explained by Rodríguez in the interview published by La Directo in his decision: “When I am aware that the Spanish supreme judiciary acts as a political party and that Amnesty is using a sanctioning procedure to impede the processing of the law, I am aware that I cannot wait for anything that might resemble justice for me. So I decided to take the path of exile, at the end of last year. I go into exile to continue working as a journalist.”
Rodriguez and the other defendants are charged with terrorism by Judge García-Castellón accusing them of participating in the Democratic Tsunami movement. This movement carried out in 2019 various actions against the Procés ruling, all in the field of civil disobedience, without using physical force and with the participation in many of them of tens of thousands of people, for example when Barcelona airport hosted for a few hours.
As pointed out by Rodríguez’s support group, all these actions are internationally recognized within the framework of the right to protest: “They did not commit attacks on people, because there was no one, no weapons were used or explosives were made. Neither was any of the so-called terrorist crimes committed in Europe. Considering the wars and violent conflicts that currently exist in the world, or the victims that occur in them, the accusation of terrorism in this case is funny, it is indeed an insult to the victims of real violence.”
In any case, Rodríguez has not yet ruled out going to the National Hearing where appropriate: “Every time, I will decide what is appropriate and after speaking with my lawyer.”
In principle, all actions of the Democratic Tsunami are included in the Amnesty Act, and upon its entry into force Spanish judges should suspend all matters related to the procés.
Steilas considers out of place the effort of the Rectorate of the UPV/EHU to prevent the participation of a person through a communication at the congress on Sovereignty(s) held recently in our university. We do not understand the attempt to obstruct the academic activity of a... [+]
