On the morning of the 28th of October, starting at 5am, there were raids in two houses in Manresa and two people were arrested on the orders of the Audiencia Nacional, acting against anarchist struggles. Units of the mobile brigade of the Mossos d’Esquadra also carried out raids and arrests in various houses and social centers in Barcelona, with 7 people arrested. As per usual, units from the Information Brigade seized materials, including electronic equipment, money, and propaganda. This operation is a continuation of the repressive strike known as the Pandora case, which was carried out in December of 2014 with the arrest of 11 comrades who are currently awaiting trial, and is related to Operation Piñata and Operation Columna, realized by the Policia Nacional.
This new repressive blow coincides with the hearing in the Audiencia Nacional to revisit the decision of preventive detention for the two imprisoned comrades, Monica and Francisco. We understand these arrests as a police and media effort to facilitate the prolongation of the imprisonment of the two comrades, who have already been locked up for two years in preventive detention. This very day the high court confirmed the prolongation of their detention. The principal objective of the State is to crush the anarchist struggles that it has singled out as the number one internal enemy. We understand that the figure of an internal enemy is necessary for a democratic State to justify “exceptional” methods of repression that supposedly should not exist in a society of “rights and liberties.”
Once again, we must signal the collaboration of the Audiencia Nacional [high court in Madrid] with the repressive forces of the Generalitat [the autonomous government of Catalunya], the Mossos d’Esquadra [Catalonia’s Security Police]. Equally, the role of the media continues to give credibility to police sources and focus the case on the figure of the GAC, a public organization that in the police and media imagination has become a terrorist association.
Demonstrations have been called for Thursday the 28th, throughout the country.
(The text above is a slightly modified version of a post on Anarchistnews.org, in turn a translation from the Catalan published on BLLIBERTARI. Earlier reports and reflections on the repression of anarchism in spain, under the name of Operation Pandora and Operation Piñata have been published by Autonomies.)
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