The news is breaking fast – faster than usual – and so it’s just a short blog this week for various reasons.

This time last Sunday, Carles Puigdemont was in Geneva, attending the ‘International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights’. From there, he went to Finland. At the time of writing this, he has been detained in Germany, on his return to Belgium, as a result of Spanish judge Llarena reactivating a European Arrest Warrant for him, as well as for other Catalan politicians in self-imposed/forced exile. Time will tell what the German authorities will do – but Spanish prosecutors are already trying to force an extradition order. Switzerland has already stated that it will not proceed with any extraditions on political motives (politicians Anna Gabriel and Marta Rovira are in Switzeland). I’d personally be surprised if the UK also extradited Clara Ponsatí, who is teaching at St.Andrews University in Scotland. She’d travelled to Austria, and then also visited Munich and London (where she took part in a protest) last week, all before the EAW was reissued. Three other Catalan politicians remain in Belgium, where they have already complied with legal authorities there … at least when the EAW was initially issued and then later withdrawn.

I could try and sum up the week’s news … I could mention the Telva photographs of Ines Arrimadas in the Catalan Parliament, or Cristina Cifuentes’s (non-existent?) university grades, or the Belgium v Spain rugby match, or the Director of Communications for the European Parliament receiving the ‘Orden de Isabel la Católica’ Award from Spain (why? why?), or about Puigdemont’s foreign trips causing ‘certain discomfort’ to Spain’s foreign minister (obviously), or about N.Sarkozy being investigated for election funding fraud (unlike M.Rajoy), or that ‘far-right clowns’ dressed up in Guardia Civil uniforms tried to break into Puigdemont’s house in Belgium, or that Joaqium Forn was denied release from prison again, even with €100k bail … or that the imprisoned Jordi Sánchez relinquished his candidacy for the Catalan Presidency to Jordi Turull, who has now also been imprisoned, along with 4 others: Carme Forcadell, Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa and Josep Rull. Because that is the real news. Yes … there are now 9 Catalan politicians in prison, and 7 others in self-imposed/forced exile (at the time of writing). They are all where they are because of Spain’s trumped-up charges of plotting and/or actually causing a ‘rebellion’; in reality, they tried to organise a vote, a referendum.

I’ve written here before about the unjust justice system in Spain. I’ve written about the ghosts of Francoism. I’ve written about Felipe VI’s diabolical speech on the Catalan issue, (and here, too … and here), and why I think the EU’s handling of it all stinks. I’ve written about the recent reports criticising Human Rights and freedom of expression in Spain. And I’ve written several times about the need for dialogue and mediation in this whole Spain/Catalonia affair.

From my point of view, 9 Catalan politicians are in jail and 7 others are in exile for one simple reason: Spain’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, refuses to accept the results of the Catalan elections that he himself called on 21 December last year, after also applying article 155 to Catalonia. That, again in my opinion, is a disgrace. It is even more of a disgrace that the EU Commission has turned a blind eye to it. This doesn’t need international arrest warrants. It needs international mediation. And it now needs it urgently.

Sometimes the week’s news from Spain, Catalonia (and Geneva) needs little or no further commentary. It’s been one of those weeks …

A French documentary film, ‘Catalonia: Spain on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’, is to be screened today, Sunday 18^th March, at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) in Geneva. It is a very apt end to the week, especially as the screening is to be followed by a discussion with Carles Puigdemont. Tickets for his talk sold out as soon as it was announced – with media ‘from half of Europe’ asking to attend. I think Spain’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was also touting for a ticket via Interpol – but not to listen to the talk. They probably wanted to sneak in and smuggle Puigdemont back to Madrid, but the Federal Office of Justice in Switzerland has made it very clear that it doesn’t carry out extraditions for political reasons. Not many countries do, actually. It’s called ‘normality’. It’s why Spain has withdrawn the European Arrest Warrant for Puigdemont, and not issued one for CUP politician Anna Gabriel (who’s also in Switzerland), nor for Clara Ponsati, the former Catalan education minister, who was in self-imposed exile in Brussels but has now moved to Scotland to teach at St.Andrew’s University. On the way, she took part in a demonstration in London (with no problem at all) against Spain’s political prisoners, and was also interviewed by BBC Scotland and other UK media. I imagine a request to extradite her for helping to organise a referendum in Catalonia would be laughed out of a court in Scotland. Literally.

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) has confirmed that Puigdemont’s visit to Switzerland is a ‘private invitation’. He will remain there at least until Wednesday, when he’s also giving a talk at the Graduate Institute on ‘separatism, self-determination and the future of Europe’. On Tuesday 20^th March, there are also side events (under the banner of ‘Human Rights Regression in Spain’) at the 37^th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council. The events include ‘The Right to Self-Determination in the 21^st Century’ and ‘Breaches of Fundamental Rights in the EU: The Catalan Case’. The wife of imprisoned Jordi Cuixart, Txell Bonet, and another exiled minister, Meritxell Serret, will also attend. The internationalisation of the Catalan issue is growing stronger by the week.

Today’s screening in Geneva is also apt because it hasn’t been a particularly positive week on all matters related to ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom of expression’ in Spain. On Tuesday – ironically the same day that the City Council of Barcelona was ordered to replace a bust of king Juan Carlos I from its plenary hall (after it had been removed in July 2015) – the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), based in Strasbourg, unanimously ruled that Spain had wrongfully condemned two Catalans for burning photos of the king in 2007. Enric Stern and Jaume Roura had been found guilty of ‘insulting the monarchy’ 11 years ago. They had initially been sentenced to 15 months in prison, but it was later reduced to a fine. The ECHR ruled that burning the photos was ‘justifiable political criticism’, freedom of expression, and that it could not be ‘construed as incitement to hatred or violence’. The court ordered Spain to reimburse the €2700 fine imposed, as well as €9000 in legal costs. Some people went out to celebrate by burning photos of the king.

On that same day, Tuesday, a report was published by Amnesty International, entitled, ‘Tweet … if you dare: how counter-terrorism laws restrict freedom of expression in Spain’. It criticised Spain for a ‘sustained attack on freedom of speech’, that the country’s law against glorification of terrorism was ‘draconian’ – and that people shouldn’t face jail simply for saying, tweeting or singing something that might be distasteful or shocking. The report concluded that the toughening of the law in 2015 had led to ‘increasing self-censorship and a broader chilling effect on freedom of expression in Spain’. Amnesty’s International Media Manager, Stefan Simanowitz, tweeted, ‘Question: Which of these could land you in prison in Spain … tweeting a joke, posting a YouTube video, rapping, or holding a puppet show? Answer: all of them.’

If this isn’t enough, a couple of days ago the ‘miracle’ of all news broke, thanks to an ‘association of Christian attorneys’. Spanish actor, Willy Toledo, who’d posted something about God and the Virgin Mary on Facebook in July last year, is to be investigated by a Spanish judge for insulting them. Yes, you read that correctly. He is to be investigated for insulting God and the Virgin Mary. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook seemed okay with the post last year, apparently … but not God and the Virgin Mary. As you can imagine, I have a couple of questions about this: will God and the Virgin Mary be called to testify? How do they know that God and the Virgin Mary are insulted? Someone mentioned that in 2014, Spain’s former interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, awarded a medal to the Virgin Mary … and so he might know.

In other news, Joaquim Forn, the former Catalan interior minister who has been imprisoned without trial, has now been diagnosed with ‘pulmonary tuberculosis’ at Estremera jail. Not only has he been imprisoned without trial, therefore, but he’s clearly been imprisoned without heating and medicine, too – and they’re refusing to release him for treatment. It is a disgrace.

This week, too, in a country where the Francisco Franco Foundation freely exists (‘don’t mention Franco’) and the ex-assistant of the king of Spain has recently been named its president, the Catalan grassroots cultural and civic organisation, Omnium Cultural – an NGO with more than 50 years of history and over 100,000 members – had its headquarters shut down and searched by the Guardia Civil for the second time in six weeks. Seven employees were initially held. A Spanish judge ordered that if Omnium summoned people to demonstrate around its HQ whilst the Guardia Civil was raiding it, then they would be committing a crime of ‘sedition’. About 9 months ago, I didn’t even know what ‘sedition’ was. Then I learnt that it was ‘inciting people to rebel [and I presume ‘rebellion’ means with violence] against the authority of a state or monarch’. I didn’t realise it also included peaceful protest and demonstrations, though, but in Spain it seems to.

At the time of writing, it is still precisely unclear why a Senegalese immigrant and street vendor, Mmame Mbage, died in the Lavapiés district of Madrid the other night. There are some reports that he collapsed and died from a heart attack, before any police aggression. What is clear, however, is that there are some disturbing photographs and videos of police action in the area.

Spain’s National Police decided that an incident where a black African actor, Marius Makon, who suffered bleeding above the eye after being hit in the head with a beer bottle by a woman who’d said, ‘I don’t want to see blacks in here’ in a bar in the Móstoles area of Madrid … would not be investigated as a racist crime.

Yesterday, mass demonstrations by pensioners took place across Spain and against the Spanish government, all demanding dignified pensions and to be re-evaluated in line with the cost of living. Meanwhile, the king of Spain was photographed skiing with his family.

What else happened? Oh, yeah. Spain’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has started a video blog. It is probably what he meant last week when he said he’s going to do everything possible and even the impossible, if the impossible is also possible.

Whilst writing this week’s blog, some very sad news came in. The body of 8 year old, Gabriel Cruz, was found near Níjar, Almeria. He’d been missing for 12 days. His body was found in the car boot of the girlfriend of the boy’s father. RIP.

This time last week, Carles Puigdemont, already exiled in Brussels, was ‘himself to blame’, according to a report from an office of the Spanish Interior Ministry, of being threatened by someone riding on top of a Spanish Army tank. Yes, you read that correctly. It was Puigdemont’s own fault that someone on top of a tank had threatened him. As Puigdemont himself pointed out, in Spain there are “innocent people in preventive detention for their ideology”, and “MPs, mayors, singers, car mechanics and clowns being prosecuted” – indeed, it is a country right now where art has been censored, rappers receive long prison sentences for criticising the royal family, yet fascism is rife and political corruption goes mainly unpunished … oh, and you can threaten Puigdemont from the top of a tank and get away with it.

It’s been one of those weeks again. The deputy Prime Minister of Spain, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, labelled as ‘foreign robots’ those people who published and circulated photos of Spanish police brutality against innocent Catalan voters on 1^st October. Yes, you read that correctly, too. Foreign robots. That includes me. I’m a foreign robot. It also includes the BBC, CNN, Sky News – actually, it includes every media outlet in the world – and every human rights observer, too. They’re all foreign robots, according to little Soraya. You probably thought she was a robot, but no – it’s the other way round.

The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, is clearly a foreign robot, too. He won’t be receiving a Christmas card from Soraya. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council this week, he criticised the use of Spanish police violence on 1^st October. “I was dismayed by the violence which broke out during October’s referendum on independence in Catalonia,” he said. “Given what appeared to be excessive use of force by police, the government’s characterization of police action on 1^st October as ‘legal, legitimate and necessary’ is questionable.” He also reminded the Spanish government that “pre-trial detention should be considered a measure of last resort” – and he also encouraged “resolution of the situation through political dialogue”.

What else happened? Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the PSOE (once upon a time a political party and/or an ‘opposition’) announced that Spain’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, should table a motion of no confidence in himself if he fails to pass the budget on 23^rd March. Yes, you read that correctly again: he should, not must. Sánchez didn’t say he’d force a motion of no confidence, only that Rajoy should volunteer to do so. Gosh, crikey … really strong words from Sánchez, therefore. Rajoy, meanwhile, continued to say some crazy stuff. And I mean really crazy stuff. This week, it was: “I will speak with absolute clarity. I will do everything I can and a little more than I can, if that is possible, and I will do everything possible and even the impossible, if the impossible is also possible.” Don’t forget, he’s being paid to say stuff like that.

Martin Glenn, Chief Executive of the Football Association (FA), said in reference to the yellow ribbon worn by Pep Guardiola in support of political prisoners: “I can tell you there are many more Spaniards, non-Catalans, who are pissed off by it.” Yes, Martin, but what Spaniards actually told you they were pissed off? Anyone ‘high up’? Were you pressured to do something about it? Pep was eventually fined £20,000 by the FA … for wearing a yellow ribbon in support of political prisoners, although Spain insists there aren’t any political prisoners.

Four judicial associations in Spain called for stoppages, without ruling out an indefinite strike, if the Spanish government doesn’t improve upon “professional conditions and the separation of powers”. Media entrepreneur, Jaume Roures, himself ‘under suspicion’ for allegedly helping the Catalan independence movement, stated in an interview that, “It’s like MacCarthyism, but in Europe – or like when they separated people on buses by the colour of their skin.”

Around 5.3m people joined the International Women’s Day strike across Spain on Thursday 8^th March – a truly historic event. Clara Ponsati, former Catalan education minister, and who has been in self-imposed exile in Brussels (alongside Carles Puigdemont, Meritxell Serret, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig), has announced that she is returning to teach at the University of St.Andrews in Scotland. It seems that she is already in Scotland.

Catalan Parliament speaker, Roger Torrent, announced that he’d signed a resolution to formally propose Jordi Sánchez, currently one of Spain’s political prisoners (yes, he is a political prisoner), for investiture as Catalan president – with the debate scheduled for 12^th March. This came about after Carles Puigdemont’s annoucement last week to ‘provisionally’ renounce his own candidacy as Catalan president – as well as his decision to take the Spanish state to the Committee of Human Rights of the United Nations. Jordi Sánchez petitioned to a Spanish judge to be released in order to attend the investiture debate … but you can guess the rest: Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled to keep him in prison. The investiture debate has been postponed whilst Sànchez appeals to the European Court of Human Rights. Spanish government members have cleverly observed that ‘you can’t run the Catalan government from prison’ … which is exactly why Sànchez is being kept in prison (and without any trial), so that he can’t run the Catalan government. It’s Catch 22. Or Catch 155.

A major pro-independence rally calling for the implementation of the Catalan Republic has just got underway here in Barcelona. I’ve just also seen a report that Spain has announced the appointment of a ‘Fake News Ambassador’. I don’t know if that is to combat fake news (or news they claim is fake), or to create fake news, but I’ll try to find out …

To explain (if needed) the title of this week’s blog: in perhaps the most famous episode of Fawlty Towers, the manic hotel manager, Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, has a major problem behaving in front of some German guests. ‘Don’t mention the war!’ he says to one of his staff. ‘I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.’ Then, returning to the shocked German guests to take their food order, he can’t stop himself: ‘So, that’s two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and four Colditz salads.’ ‘Will you stop talking about the war?’ cries one of the guests. ‘Me? You started it!’ retorts Basil. ‘We did not start it!’ comes the reply. ‘Yes, you did,’ insists Basil, ‘you invaded Poland.’ First broadcast in 1975, it was a brilliant mockery, not of Germans, but of Basil Fawlty himself – the fact that there were people like Basil who regarded all Germans as being responsible for Nazi Germany, and the rise and support of Adolf Hitler. 1975. Just keep that in mind for a moment …

Here’s a quick recap on some of the week’s news, as I think it helps to put things in perspective:

On Monday, the pro-government (& pro-monarchy) media in Spain reported that the negative reception Felipe VI received in Barcelona [I wrote about Felipe & ‘rocket science’ here], and the snub from the city’s mayor and the speaker of the Catalan parliament, all put the future of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in jeopardy. Er … it wasn’t true. The MWC has just completed one of its most successful events ever held in Barcelona. Here are some key figures from the press release of the organisers, GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association), issued on 1^st March, entitled ‘GSMA wraps up hugely successful Mobile World Congress 2018’: more than 107,000 visitors from 205 countries, including more than 7,700 CEOs – up from 6,100 CEOs in 2017. More than 2,400 exhibitors, more than 3,500 international media and industry analysts, and the 2018 MWC contributed approximately €471m and over 13,000 part-time jobs to the local economy. ‘We had another highly successful Mobile World Congress, on so many fronts,’ said John Hoffman, CEO of GSMA. He said the event was ‘one of our most successful ever’, and that the only disappointment was the weather. The press release crucially also confirms: ‘MWC 2019 will be held 25-28 Feb 2019 in Barcelona’ and that it ‘will be hosted in Barcelona through 2023.’

Just think. If Spain’s pro-government media were scaremongering about the negative impact on the MWC of Felipe VI’s reception in Barcelona, do you think they’ve distorted the truth about a few other things, too? I mean, 3,000 major corporations (including banks, car manufacturers, telecom operators, food and drinks groups) have ‘apparently’ closed their businesses and moved their HQs out of Catalonia, leaving thousands of staff redundant and office blocks empty. So, did the MWC participants notice anything different? No! Of course not! Banks were still open, cashpoints worked, cars were still visible, hotels, restaurants and bars were still open, the shops were full and selling loads of great stuff, the telecoms worked, the infrastructure worked, and you could still eat jamón, drink Damm or Moritz beer, Freixenet or Cordoníu cava, and even rent or buy a Seat VW car if you wanted to. Visitors probably also found that the Catalans were willing and able to speak to them in any language required: English, French and Spanish.

Also in the news … thanks to the Streisand effect, every major media outlet in the world explained very clearly why Pep Guardiola wears a yellow ribbon: it is in protest at Spain’s political prisoners. A TV reporter in Spain, however, inferred that it was to support a charity to fight prostate cancer.

The Times newspaper published a scathing editorial about the situation in Spain, stating that the ‘Spanish government’s imprisonment of pro-independence activists was plainly excessive … pre-trial detention has raised questions among civil rights organisations across Europe’ and that ‘Spain should allow Puigdemont and other leaders to return and enter a dialogue’. The Economist published an article entitled, ‘Why Spanish courts censor art, speech and rap lyrics’. Enric Millo, the Spanish government’s delegate in Catalonia, said on radio that ‘technically, there were no [police] charges on 1^st October’ against Catalan voters … despite Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch, and hundreds of other international organisations and observers, as well as the global media, clearly witnessing it for themselves.

Xavier García Albiol, the leader of the PP party in Catalonia (what’s left of it), and a man tall enough to play basketball (I mention that because he’s criticised others’ real qualifications) – was named as an example of racist and xenophobic politics in a report issued by the Council of Europe. In any other country, that would be seen as a disgrace. On Twitter, I wrote that Albiol would consider it as an award. He blocked me.

650 lawyers from around Spain denounced the violation of rights in Catalonia to Europe. Despite accusing many Catalan politicians with malfeasance of public funds (part of the arguments for why there are still 4 political prisoners jailed without trial in Spain), Rajoy’s government admitted that the Catalan government spent €0 in organising the Catalan Referendum on 1^st October … a referendum that Rajoy spent over €87m trying to prevent. Spain demanded the resignation of Albert Ginjaume, Finland’s honorary consul in Barcelona, apparently because he had lunch with a pro-independence supporter. Spain has now also demanded an explanation from the Peruvian ambassador after the Pervuvian honorary consul in Barcelona voiced support for the dismissed Finnish consul. This ‘diplomatic inquisition’ looks set to continue.

The Spanish government has vetoed any investigation by Congress about the relationship with Spain’s intelligence services and the Imam of Ripoll, the ringleader of the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils last August. 500 trade union representatives from all over Europe campaigned for the immediate release of political prisoners. Pensioners held mass protests against the Spanish government. The house being rented for Jorge Moragas, Spain’s UN ambassador in New York (previously Rajoy’s cabinet chief, and mainly responsible for his diabolical policies in Catalonia) has 11 bedrooms and a squash court. The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has compiled a list of countries that use excessive police violence against demonstrators, criticising them in front of the UN. Spain is on the list alongside Congo, Togo, Sudan and Honduras. Another rapper, Pablo Hasél, has been sentenced to two years in prison for ‘injuries to the crown’ and ‘crimes of glorifying terrorism’, after posting messages on Twitter and uploading a song on YouTube. An ex-assistant to Spain’s king emeritus, Juan Carlos I, is to become the president of the ‘Francisco Franco Foundation’ (yes, there really is a Franco foundation) … and which brings us back to Franco (not that he was clearly ever gone in any of the above news). The Spanish government has said it is not going to exhume any of the 33,000 victims buried at Franco’s mausoleum, the ‘Valle de los Caídos’, as it is too expensive. It did, however, spend around €2m maintaining the mausoleum over the past few years, and it did find funds to exhume members of the ‘División Azul’ [the Blue Division, a Spanish force that also fought for Hitler] and repatriate them. A group of MEPs visited the mausoleum on Friday and called it an ‘insult’.

Franco. Don’t mention Franco. I’ve mentioned him a few times now but hopefully I’ve got away with it. Carles Puigdemont mentioned Franco this week, too – as part of an exclusive interview published in The Guardian newspaper, coinciding with his decision to take the Spanish state to the Committee of Human Rights of the United Nations, as well as ‘provisionally’ renounce his candidacy as Catalan president. ‘I was educated in the Franco era,’ he said. ‘We could only speak Catalan at home; it was prohibited at school and in public media. There’s a whole generation that was not allowed to talk Catalan publicly.’ The remark was met with some fierce cricitism on social media: Franco died over 40 years ago … why did Puigdemont have to bring up Franco yet again? Oh, and why do the foreign media keep mentioning Franco? Why? Let me try to briefly explain …

I don’t pretend to speak for other foreign writers about Spain, but what I do know is that we don’t all wake up each day deliberately looking for something to write about Franco. We don’t need to look for it, either, because it is already there. But we don’t want to write about Franco or even have to mention the bastard. Let me clarify that: I think some writers do still want to expose more about the past and Franco, and rightly so – because much was covered up. But I don’t think we want to deliberately associate it or draw parallels with current events … but it’s hard not to, it really is. Franco is dead, yes. But Francoism is clearly still breathing in many circles, and it is not only disturbing but repulsive. Think of 1975 and Basil Fawlty. Think of ‘Brand Germany’ then … it was still being mocked on TV (although, as I say, the mockery was aimed at those who regarded all Germans as having something to do with ‘the war’.) Franco died in 1975. ‘Brand Spain’ then became great for many years (it was cool, I wrote here) – but today, today, Spain is being associated with Franco more than ever. Sort it out, Spain.