Are we condemned to an endless revolt?

It looks like it does. The permanent revolt is not a souvenir film because, unfortunately, it shows current events. What the friends of Vitoria lived on 3 March 76, those of Pamplona in the sanfermines of 78, and now we, with half a government imprisoned, are on the same path. The line of continuity is clear between Fraga, Martín Villa, Fernández Díaz and Zoido. They all have the same mindset and attitude. Whether right-wing or PSOE, they have maintained the same line in these years. Fraga was more fiery, but the arguments have always been the same and we continue to suffer the consequences of his decisions. And here it's better to be attentive, because you'll come behind us. You have economic agreements and those things that make you a dangerous citizen.

That will be the first point in the next State Pact, because they do not want to understand that a specific concept of freedom is based on rights that have been won throughout history and the struggle. It is not just a question of defending EUR 1,000 more per month, but of defending concepts that are deeply rooted. If the Catalan ends very badly the following will be you.

You are now quoted in a report by the Civil Guard.

My affairs with the Civil Guard started a long time ago. In the year 83, with the socialist government, General Sáenz de Santamaría was placed at the head of the newly established ZEN (Northern Special Zone). Central Government Regent. They appeared in my house and stopped me saying that I was helping the ETA Barcelona command. A few days later, I was released. I've always been waiting for someone to show up in my house and ask me for forgiveness, but no. Instead of the request for forgiveness, it is the new reports that have come. On the latter, I have said that its authors have a very low intellectual level, since it has no substance. However, as has been seen in other cases, such reports have served the prevaricating judges to tell the judges that there has been a kind of armed rebellion in Catalonia. They compare the peaceful, exemplary and multitudinous mobilisation of 1 October with the coup of 23 February. When I say the prevaricator judge, I say it with all the letters, because you don't have to have a lot of imagination to manipulate reality like that, but a great hostile.

Aren't you afraid of going to jail for what you say?

I have not said anything illegal. I said that they have a person who has been convicted of being the torturing head of a major operation. The leader of the Civil Guard who was sent to Catalonia in the referendum on 1 October was Diego Pérez de los Cobos, who was in a summary of torturers of the Civil Guard and brother of whom he was president of the Constitutional Court that changed the future of the Catalan statute. It's no coincidence. Diego Pérez de los Cobos was released, but in that summary he was sentenced for torturing Kepa Urra in 1997, three other civilian guards, although then the Supreme Court lowered the penalty from twelve to six years and Aznar granted them a pardon in 1999. One of them is Manuel Sánchez Corbí, who in 2015 was appointed head of the highest body of the Civil Guard in the Central Operational Unit (UCO). Torture is not just the horror that is made, but the cowardice behind it. The torturer is the most cowardly in the world, as he abuses people who have no possibility of protection and is therefore unworthy of protection.

Another example: The judge who seized the rapper Valtonyc is Enrique López. Very close to pp, he was a prominent member of the Constitutional Court, until the Madrid Police, at 6 a.m., stopped him completely drunk and without a helmet and left office shortly afterwards. He was not expelled from the Constitutional Court. He went discreetly and is now in the National High Court. I think it's a good picture of those people who are deciding on people's future. All of them are not coincidences, but a continuation of previous behaviors.

The altercation of Alsasua is also considered terrorism.

Alsasua's is a new offensive by the renewed Franco regime. I do not have too much confidence in Spanish justice, but I hope that these young people will have a good trial.

Is this a free-for-all Franco?

We are picking up the fruits of the transition. This was the obligatory step they had to take in order to be able to continue. They accommodated themselves, but without releasing the command rod. Now, in addition, they attach very little importance to forms. They don't care. This is how the Foreign Minister comes out on the BBC saying that the pictures of 1 October on that television channel are false or the Vice-President of the Government says that these images are made from robots. You have to have a hard leather to say that, but they don't care because they have the authority docks very tightly attached.

What don't forgive you is that it's red and that it's also been successful in business?

I believe that the current accusation is more related to the press conference we organised on 1 October and, furthermore, to the consequences that this has had in the international arena. After all, the image of what happened there has been seen all over the world and that, in a way, is being accused of me. The Civil Guard’s report always talks about this and a documentary on the referendum. They never mention the documentary of the state's steaks [The Sewers of the Interior], which directly implicates them. They keep it secret, and they've got almost no one to come up and talk about it, except to talk badly and without being seen. I don't think you care what I've done in the past.

In the media in Madrid, too, you get a lot of rubbish, criticizing, for example, that you are Marxist and rich.

Because they don't know what it's like to be a Marxist. Engels, for example, was pretty rich. What happens is that the media are part of a mechanism, as we showed in the documentary of the cloacas of the State. Besides having everything related to the courts and the police, there is a parallel structure of the apparatus that works differently and that is where the media are located.

To start with, you look for an enemy. To do this, a report is invented, that of the UCO, that of the police, that of a sentence… no matter what. And those accusations are spread through the media, especially through what we call the Madrid press. They put the trash on you all the time. Before, they had the Clean Hands collective, a clear mechanism that harnessed media noise and turned to the judges saying that something had to be investigated. Then they would prosecute you, and about three years ago, you lived in a kind of limbo with all the shit that you were thrown at and accused you before everybody else. After three years or a similar period of time, a judge considers that there is no crime, but by then the mechanism has already worked and has already achieved its objective.

Now they make it very clear. What used to be Clean Hands now does VOX. The punishment comes before the sentence.

Others criticize him for having worked for power or for Citizens.

It gives me the same thing. My job is a job, and I don't confuse it with my ideology.

Are you a catalyst, but not a pro-independence?

I defend the right of the Catalans to decide on our future. Self-determination, that is, the right to decide, is very basic. It is also in the statutes of the PSOE. There is a claim from the bourgeoisie of the 19th century. We are not asking for anything stratospheric. We're 100 years behind. This is the cross-cutting battle that brings so many people together. Independence stands at 48 per cent. Worthy of praise, but not enough. We must work towards self-determination.

Are you in favour of Catalonia continuing in Spain?

I am in favour of striving to reach that moment of decision. But then that process must be a real debate between different options. I understand that there are a lot of people who feel bound up with Spain for a number of reasons and are entitled to do so, but a reasonable debate needs to be held. At the moment, in this repressive environment, unfortunately, it cannot be done. It is necessary to be able to decide freely.

Is the attitude of the people of Catalonia exemplary?

Yes, yes. It gives us a lot of strength that millions of people go out into the street without breaking a single glass. Of the seven million citizens, we have come to mobilise one million. It's terrible. Against the attacks in Paris, some 200,000 people came together and many people thought it was terrible.

Can it be here in the Basque Country?

I don't know. Why not? You have here a profound fighting tradition that has been carried out in different ways. The capacity to mobilize Euskal Herria is very large and we are also in that parameter. It is true that the economic crisis here has not been so severe and that violence has divided society. Now, precisely, we have just finished a documentary by Amnesty International. Suffering in Euskal Herria is one of the five points that have been worked on, and shows the pain of people from different parts. This is a comprehensive review.

The movie is finished and we will see if we convince a TV to give it, if we will not hang it on Youtube. The film clearly shows that in the last ten years, with the Mordaza Act and other measures of this kind, there has been a setback in freedom. The state and some courts use brute force and do not care. However, we cannot lose what little we have gained. What was achieved was too little, but we cannot allow ourselves to escape.

What do you think will happen in Catalonia?

I don't know. The only thing that worries me is to tire or distribute the force that the movement, the procés, has put in place. It is clear that the bosses have made mistakes, some of them serious, but I will not underestimate them. Everything has to be reoriented, but the important thing is not to weaken the movement. In Madrid they tend to focus on some people, but this is a matter of the street. This is how the world has changed so far, not because a politician has come up with something, but because there is a social movement that has forced him to make changes. This was the case, for example, with military service. People don't remember it, but there were 220,000 people who refused to go to military service and 300 of them were incarcerated. The difference is that on that occasion the media were not against it. His attitude was warm. If they had thrown all the shit that they now pour, it would surely not have been so good.

Is the need for free media greater than ever?

Yes, but the Left has never had the ability to create effective means of communication or to enhance those that already exist. They trust any newcomer, and that's what happens. It's a huge weakness. TV3 is being hit harshly in Catalonia, but it only has 15% of the viewers in Catalonia. The remaining 85% is garbage, negative messages around the procés.

What is the importance of social networks?

It is true that there are new tools that did not exist before, but more firepower is needed. Media is needed to help what is said on social media. You have to keep working, because nobody gives you anything here.