Alejandro Tercero – Barcelona – 16/02/2020
The director of E-news, Xavier Rius, has been assaulted on Saturday by several protesters who participated in the cut of the Meridiana Avenue in Barcelona carried daily (4 months) by groups of independentists to protest against the sentence of the process.
The journalist was making a report of the systematic blockade of the road when several of the concentrates – the majority hooded – have ordered him to stop recording them. By refusing, the tension has grown and he finished “shaken, pushed, surrounded, grabbed by the neck and attacked by a dozen people,” explains the digital.
“You will do it by hook or by crook”
In a video recorded by Rius himself, you can see how the situation has risen. Some protesters have asked him “please, stop recording” and others have threatened him with phrases like “I tell you by hook or by crook, delete the video”, “if you publish any image, we will denounce you, is that clear?, “and” delete the video, moron. “
Finally, the image melts to black and there are noises and the screams of the journalist asking for help: “Help, they are attacking me! Police!”.
“If you get in the middle, there will be conflict”
Visibly angry, Rius has then come to report what happened to several agents of Catalan police (Mossos d’Esquadra) who were watching the concentration. “They attacked me and you are passively watching it at 200 meters, you do not dare to go there, it is a shame,” he said indignantly to one of them.
However, the police have limited themselves to saying that the concentration is authorized by the “government authority” and that they can only “protect the mobilization.” And he told the journalist: “If you get in the middle of a group of people of a certain ideology … […] it is clear that there will be conflict”.
Police passivity
Cuts at the Meridiana avenue – one of the main arteries of the city – are organized every day at 8:00 p.m. – and are held until 10:00 p.m. – from mid-October. During the first months, nationalist activists carried out such boycott actions without communicating the concentration to the government of Catalonia (Generalitat), as established by law, but the Catalan government tolerated it with impunity.
In recent times, the cuts have generated moments of violence, registering aggressions. There have also been paradoxical situations, such as a fine by the Urban Guard to a driver for honking the horn to show his tiredness for the retentions due to the invasion of the road.
Fire and campaigning against
This week, some protesters have made a bonfire in the middle of the street and set fire to posters of Citizens, PP, Vox, the National Police and the Civil Guard.
A few days before, associations as Impulso Ciudadano and S’ha Acabat launched the “Meridiana Free Avenue” campaign in order to end these concentrations, for which they have started collecting signatures.
Add comment