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from the friend's-phone-was-not-a-lifeline dept.
Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was tracked by Spain through fitting his group's car with a surveillance device as well as following the mobile phones of his companions. He was eventually captured in Germany on his way to Belgium from Finland.
Spanish intelligence agents had been tracking the movements of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont using the geolocation service on his friend's mobile phone before he was detained in Germany at the weekend, according to reports.
Puigdemont was detained under a European arrest warrant in the northern German province of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday morning as he journeyed by car from Helsinki to Brussels, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since Catalonia's unilateral declaration of independence last October.
From The Guardian: Spanish spies 'tracked Carles Puigdemont via friend's phone'
An international warrant for Puigdemont's arrest had been rescinded back in December but was revived for this occasion. Already back in September, the Internet Society issued a statement about the Spanish government's great efforts to outright censor online activities promoting or discussing the bid for Catalonian independence.
See also earlier SN stories:
Spain Moves Forward With Plan to Suspend Catalonia's Autonomy
Police and Voters Clash During Catalan Independence Referendum
Spain Trying to Stop Catalonia Independence Referendum
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @04:57PM (3 children)
And there we go. The problem here is that we have a giant circular argument here. The hubbub in question has been well-aired so we know the details of the crimes that Puigdemont is accused of. He didn't have a chance to rebel or commit sedition. Someone in the Spanish government merely has decreed that Spanish law has been broken because of some partisan grandstanding, shut everything down, and is now harassing political opponents with arrests. At that point, err with the accused.
So what? The UK of the time wasn't a democracy and rule of law was very tenuous. There were a number of powerful parties who could have declared sedition and rebellion on arbitrary weak members of society just because it was Thursday.
And you're making a giant circular argument here arguing that this protest was rebellion and sedition because that is what you believe it is. Where again is the evidence that it was rebellion and sedition?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:23PM (2 children)
Get back to me when the Spanish courts start taking your advice in preference to their own published laws. Until then, you remain an idiot. Your views do not matter in this case - Spanish law trumps your spurious beliefs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:11PM
You're still doing the circular argument thing. If the court was impartial, then you're gold. But we already know details of the cases in question. The accused never had a chance to break these laws. A non-binding referendum is not binding and an announcement of independence doesn't mean that they intend to engage in rebellion and sedition. The court sided with the government despite that. It's a bad call.
Keep in mind that there's a thin line of interpretation between protest, and the twin charges of sedition and rebellion. Let's go back to your example of the UK in the 18th Century. The UK routinely treated protest as sedition and rebellion. The Boston Tea Party (a protest where East Indian Company tea was tossed overboard before it could be used as a precedent for collecting taxes on tea) was described [american-revolutionary-war-facts.com] by the Governor of Massachusetts (a minion of the UK) as an act of "high treason". And if anyone had been caught for the crime, you can bet they wouldn't be punished for mere destruction of private property even though that is what they did.
Such very flexible and encompassing crimes are the standard go-to for tyrannical governments which wish to squash dissent.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:39PM