Catalan council’s Spanish national holiday protest quashed
A Spanish judge has ordered Badalona council to shut its offices today, quashing the Catalan city’s plans to ignore the Spanish holiday.
On 10 October, Badalona council stated that its offices would be open on 12 October, the Fiesta Nacional de España.
The council offered its staff the opportunity to work voluntarily on 12 October, in exchange for a holiday on 9 December.
Legal ruling
However, the Spanish government’s delegation in Catalunya requested a legal ruling. Consequently, a judge said he believed there were political intentions behind the council’s decision to turn 12 October into a voluntarily holiday and that these would harm the ‘ideological freedom’ of workers.
Spain’s national day has provoked controversy in recent years following the rise of the Catalan pro-independence movement. It is perceived by some in Catalunya as a day for anti-independence groups to call for a ‘united’ Spain. The day marks the day Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in 1492. It is also Armed Forces Day, featuring a big military parade in Madrid.
In response, Badalona’s councillors said they will work at the doors of the offices and have called on citizens to support them. The deputy mayor, José Téllez, said that the councillors will be ‘on the front line’ to combat ‘state coups against local sovereignty’.
A number of other councils across Catalunya, however, are working as usual, according to local reports.
On Wednesday morning, the Assemblea Nacional Catalana, a Catalan independence campaign group, posted on Facebook that its staff were working as usual.
Main image: Keith Williamson, under a Creative Commons licence
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