The MP and former National Secretary of the Cup, Quim Arrufat, announced on Saturday that he left the party for allegations of male assault in the Lower House. According to the media, in 2014 and 2019 internal complaints against Arrufat were filed for sexual abuse and sexual assault. Ara has assured that the independence left was abandoned as a result of these allegations, more specifically when it was expelled: the attack on the CUP that was being managed in the internal structures, without going to the courts, but – always according to Ara- repeating the attack on the CUP protocol against the aggressions is an expulsion.

Exit on the Elimination Portal

On Sunday, the Cup released a statement announcing that Quim Arrufat abandons the leftist independence party "in a process of managing the Machian aggressions." The Cup has not made any reference to the information published by Ara nor has it offered details about sexual assaults or their situation, citing "macho assaults". He explained that he has a "proper protocol" and a "complaints management commission" to deal with the assaults, and that the protocol requires "absolute confidentiality" and "anonymity" to "not victimize the assaulted person for the second time". The note points out that women have the legitimacy to take other measures and that, if they do so, they have the support of the Cup. "We recognize that within the Cup sexist aggressions occur, and we are not people who are foreign to patriarchy or to Machian aggressions. Her identification, recognition and approach is also part of the feminist struggle to eradicate the violence we live in," the Cup explained.

On Monday, Cup Member Natalia Sánchez made statements at Catalunya Radio. Quim Arrufat has stated that he left the party "on the doorstep of an expulsion" linked to attacks and repression.

Quim Arrufat has denied on social media the information published by Ara, but indirectly recognizing that an internal process had been initiated: “The attitudes Ara attributes to me are not true. They do not coincide with the contents of the dossiers processed internally within the framework of the feminist commission. He linked the information to the intention to harm the Cup in the Catalan elections, and called for "prudence and respect".

Arrufat announced in June 2020 that he had ceased to be a Cup activist, in a long vilaweb interview. He assured that the reason for the departure was the lack of political understanding and confidence in Catalonia. "After leaving the National Secretariat, I had a number of political disappointments with the Cup. The overall mood, not only of the CUP, was a dark cloud, of bad mood and of finding guilty everywhere, of not seeing the future and of wanting to reproach himself,” he said, among other things.