Catalan News Agency: a fantastic tool

Next October 1st, the Agència Catalana de Notícies (ACN) will present its English news service, the Catalan News Agency (CNA). ACN’s director Saül Gordillo says that the CNA aims to publish main news stories from Catalonia for an international audience. “The CNA wants to inform people from abroad about Catalonia, but from a Catalan point of view, so that foreign media do not only have the perspective of the Madrid based press”, argued Gordillo.

The director of the agency says that the CNA is an “ambitious” project. He explained that the English website is not an automatic translation of the agency’s main contents. On the contrary, journalists elaborate the information in English starting from scratch, bearing international media and the public in mind. “We offer more contextualised information that helps to understand the Catalan reality (...) There is no news provider in Catalonia with the intention of being understood abroad”.
The director of the agency said that the CNA is a “strategic plan for the future”' in order to “open” the company to the world. “The Agència Catalana de Notícies is the national news agency of Catalonia. As a public service, we thought that we should project Catalonia into the world. And to do it in English, especially in this moment of economic crisis and when the relationship between Catalonia and Spain is widely discussed”, he stated.
The English language service of the Catalan News Agency has 3 parts:
- The first one is a digital newspaper that includes the main news stories of the day.
- The second part of the website is an opinion blog called 'Catalan Views' in which recognised figures from the Catalan political, cultural, economic and social spheres participate.
- The third one is a newsletter with the most important information from the last fifteen days that will be sent to Catalan institutions abroad, foreign media, enterprises, tourist operators and universities. All the content of the CNA website is multimedia.

A former Catalan regional minister with Solidarity

A former minister of the Catalan regional government has announced it will support the new coalition SCI. Carles Solà was born in Xàtiva, Valencian Country on 1945.He awarded a PhD degree in Chemistry, he has carried out research in Biochemical Engineering with 130 publications, having tutored 22 doctoral theses. Solà was Rector of a Catalan University (UAB). He also was president of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities and member of the Executive Committee for the International Association of University President as well as member of the Board of the European University Association. He was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa in Science from the University of Southampton (1999) and is member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Solà was proud to be in the last position in the Solidarity’s list. He says this is the best option fos catalan people to be independent and to be, withou filters, in Europe.
Other personalities are supporting the new movement as the Valencian writer Isabel Clara-Simó, prominent teachers of law and economics as Hèctor López Bofill and Emili Valdero or the notary Alfons López Tena. They are forming a storng team with key personalities of the “referendum movement” as uriel bertran and Anna Arqué. Last year about 500 referendums have been organized across the country with half a milion voters.

Reagrupament strong effort

The party lead by Doctor Joan Carretero is doing a strong effort to be visible. Some days there are ten meetings in several localities to explain the independence benefits. Reagrupament Independentista (Independentist Rally) will be the name of the electoral platform. About twenty electoral offices have been open last weeks to support their list. On eleventh September Reagrupament was one of the stronger movements to mobilize people with a popular lunch and a demonstration. The last one was followed by more than two thousand people.

Spanish terrorist attack against independentist meeting

Around 21 hours on Saturday 09.18.2010, during the presentation of the Catalan Solidarity Independence in Cervera (Segarra), unidentified individuals burned a Catalan Starry flag (cpopularlu called “estelada”), approximately ten feet. It hunged from the main facade of the Gran Teatre de La Passió de Cervera, the theather were the meeting took place. A number of firefighters personed immediately to the scene while the fire was initially turned off by a member of the organizing team. The fire did not caused any injury.

There were a strong crowd of four hundred people inside the building, who had not news of the fact until the end of the event. Sources firefighters ensured that the fire, very bulky, could jeopardize the integrity of the building, which housed hundreds of reminding people of all ages inside. Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència asked Spanish nationalist parties to denounce the terrorist attack. Nor PSOE, PP or C’s did it. This is a reason to be ilegalized in the Spanish law. Is this law the same for everybody?.

Fist meeting for independence held in Arenys

On September 12th was held the first gathering for Independence in Arenys de Munt. It celebrated the anniversary holding the first consultation on the independence of Catalonia. Since then there have been about 400 consultations with over 50,000 volunteers. Last three consultations were celebrated on September 11th with a 87-95 % of yes.

The congregation met a crowd of three thousand in the Maresme’s town In the framework of the festival was signed on Commitment of Arenys de Munt. The text says: "We are committed, and the political forces which be belong, to propose, to the Parliament that will emerge from the elections planned for this fall, to work to build, the most socially possible, to exercise our right of self-determination. After it we can break the constitutional pact and to hold a referendum that allows all people to express on the Catalonia’s desire to become an independent state "

It was signed by Catalan Solidarity Independence represented by Joan Laporta. Rally with his president Joan Carretero and ERC. The ERC’s representative was the European Parliament Oriol Junqueras. In the afternoon Moisès Broggi opened the monument to independence. A lot of people demanded Solidaritat and Reagrupament to unite.

Demonstrations for independence throughout Catalonia

September eleven is the Catalan national day. It evokes the last day of Catalan freedom before to be defeated by French and Spanish armies on 1714. The night before torchlights marched through forty villages. In Berga there were three hundred people, in Vilafranca the march was followed by 2.000 and three thousand lighted Manresa or Vic.


Demonstrations for independence were convoked the days ten and eleven. For instance in Vic, Reus, Lleida (half a thousand people for independence and 2.000 demanded more self-government), Girona (5.000 for independence and 200 for self-government) and Barcelona. In the main city division between several independentist proposals was highly lamented. Local police counted nine thousand people (last year they counted 14.000). Organizers counted 30.000 as the last year.

A fist march ended in the Fossar de les Moreres were 1714 martyrs are buried. There was a meeting and some masked people burned Spanish and French flags as well as a portrait of the Spanish king. All this acts are prosecuted with high penalties in Spain. In USA you have the right to burn a USA’s flag. The second march was lead by civical platforms with no political form (Plataforma pel Dret a Decidir and Sobirania I Progrés). It was followed by two new independentist parties, Catalan Solidarity for Independence and Rally. Some people demanded unity between them because their aims are the same. At last there was the ERC’s march with several members of the autonomous government. Scottish delegations supported ERC and Solidarity and the PQ’s president, P. Maurois, from Quebec, was in the ERC’s block. No violent incident was reported unlike unionists meetings as the World championship celebrations with dozens of people detained or the pro bullfighting who destroyed a ERC’s building last July.

35 Torchlight marches on 10-S

Every September tenth, at night, are held at various Catalan locations torchlight marches. It is a symbolic event the night before the national day: the eleventh of September. That day, in 1714, Barcelona surrendered to the Spanish invasion that turned the war of succession. Since then, Catalonia lost its rights and institutions.

All in all, on 2003 at Vilafranca del Penedès was held the first torchlight march. The torches symbolize the light of the Catalan resistance despite 300 years of military occupation, economic pillaging and cultural denial.
Gradually there were more people and adding more villages to the point that this year there will be marches in 35 locations. So, that the list is not yet defined. In Manresa, for instance, on last year was held the first of nearly 2,000 people.

Solidaritat (Solidarity) elects candidates in primary elections

Catalan Solidarity for Independence (SCI) has chosen its candidate.
 It has been done with primary elections.
The movement was founded with the intention of creating a grand coalition Catalan independence.
The response of the existing parties has been negative and SCI decided to launch a new electoral list. The primary elections have been an historical step in Catalan democracy history, SCI says.

The movement is led by Joan Laporta (FC Barcelona former chairman) and prominent members from CDC (the party founded by Jordi Pujol), ERC and Reagrupament (meaning Rally).
The lists elected will be lead by Laporta, Hèctor López Bofill (from ERC), and Francesc X. Segura and Toni Strubell (from Rally).