ERC demands the transfer of the Via Laietana Police Headquarters to invest Pedro Sánchez
A year ago, the ERC Government already announced that one of the “first battles” that the Generalitat would address in its bilateral meetings with the Government would be the transfer of the National Police Headquarters in Via Laietana, the epicenter of the independence protests during The 'procés' was again last Sunday, the anniversary of 1-O when some protesters threw miniature ballot boxes against the façade. For sovereignty, the police building is a symbol of “repression” since it concentrates the majority of mobilizations and was even the scene of the 'battle of Urquinaona' with serious clashes with the agents. However, constitutionalism has also shown its support for the police forces with several tributes to the police officers who guard it, such as the loud applause of the 😯 demonstration six years ago, the same one that they want to repeat this Sunday to reproach a possible amnesty.
The Generalitat wants the transfer of the Headquarters to locate the headquarters of the Democratic Memorial, despite the fact that the Barcelona City Council also aspires to keep the property to dedicate a “space to remember the political repression, the Franco regime and also the torture that exists in everyone”. Although the Government has been reticent about the transfer and even carried out work to improve the Headquarters, where agents of the National Police continue to work, the need for the socialist candidate Pedro Sánchez to have the votes of ERC and JxCat to be invested could turn the situation around.
And, as EL MUNDO learned, one of ERC's requests to give its support to the PSOE involves the commitment for the Headquarters building to be transferred to the Generalitat, which would imply that the State would lose one of its most important buildings. emblematic buildings in the city and the police officers who carry out their duties there will disperse to other locations in the community, such as the La Verneda police complex.. The Government has always rejected the transfer, arguing that a “fully democratic police force” works at the Headquarters.
While the negotiations are being negotiated, the Barcelona City Council continued with the project of honoring the people who suffered torture in the building during the Franco regime and within the reform of Via Laietana they placed some tiles, with the words 'Justice', 'Reparation', ' Memory' and 'Truth' in front of Headquarters. This is not the first time that the City Council has tried to recover the historical memory of this location since in the previous term of Mayor Ada Colau a lectern was located that remembered these tortures and that was vandalized several times until it was removed.
The new tiles placed by the Consistory now governed by the socialist Jaume Collboni have provoked the rejection of opposition parties such as PP and Vox, as well as police unions who are suspicious of this tribute, considering it as a prelude to a possible transfer of Headquarters. to the Generalitat for its support for Sánchez. In this way, Ibón Domínguez, spokesperson for Jupol, believes that the building on Via Laietana can “be a bargaining chip in the investiture agreement” since “it is a historical demand of the independentists to turn it into a torture museum.”. “If the Government is capable of carrying out an amnesty law, how is the Higher Headquarters of Catalonia going to give in,” said Domínguez, who expressed his “concern” about the tiles placed by the City Council since they “buy the independence story.”
For this reason, Domínguez urged the acting Government to “rethink and not sell the National Police again in exchange for a handful of votes” and added that “today more than ever it is necessary for the institutions to defend the Forces and Corps.” of State Security and also protect their workplaces”. “There is no functional or operational reason for the Vía Laietana Police to be moved,” said the Jupol spokesperson, who added that “dozens of agents and personnel from the National Police administration currently work in these offices, so “The transfer of these units to new ones that meet the necessary characteristics would be very complicated and would mean a reduction in the working and operational conditions of the National Police in Barcelona.”
“We are very concerned about the situation of the Higher Police Headquarters in Catalonia, because we sincerely believe that this time the State is going to give in to the pressure of the independentists,” remarked the Jupol spokesperson, who recalled that the agents stationed in Catalonia continue to “suffer “sovereignist” harassment without receiving any type of economic compensation, as we have been demanding for a long time, and even the Minister of the Interior promised to recognize Catalonia as a special area of singularity and today our colleagues in Catalonia do not receive any supplement and what they do is stay the minimum amount of time necessary before requesting a new destination.
Activists throw toy ballot boxes and voting ballots in front of the police station EFE
Also the spokesperson for the Professional Police Union (SPP), José de la Fuente, pointed out that the installation of the tiles is “deeply misguided, since it attacks the members of the National Police Corps, undermines the image of the National Police and undermines the dignity of all police officers who work in Catalonia”. Furthermore, he expressed his surprise that “the current PSC team, supported by the PP, has continued with the same municipal policy of harassment and demolition of the police headquarters on Via Laietana and therefore the National Police” with the placement of these tiles.
“Some of the tiles are engraved with the word 'Memory'. Perhaps with this word, and the desire of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya to recover this building, what they want is to remember the first government of Lluis Companys in 1934, when Josep Dencàs was Minister of the Government and was in charge of the Miquel Public Order Police Station. Badía – all of them from ERC – directed and carried out a great repression on the anarchists, common criminals and others whom he subjected to torture in the headquarters of the Higher Police Headquarters of Vía Layetana” remarked the SPP spokesperson who He added that “it's good to have a memory but not so selective.”
The Spanish Police Confederation (CEP) regrets “the fetishistic obsession of the radical independence movement, which has turned a building, that of our Higher Headquarters in Barcelona, into a kind of symbol of unknown political purposes.”. And it does so, furthermore, by dusting off alleged torture that would have been committed in the last century, in the midst of the dictatorship, within those facilities.. It gives us the feeling that the clock of these groups has stopped and that they have been trapped in an outdated era.”. Thus, they highlight that this group “lives ensconced in hatred and resentment from the past” when they have overcome “this type of obsession with generosity, harmony and looking to the future” and the Police is a “modern” institution with agents who did not live through the dictatorship. .
“In the Vía Layetana building there are colleagues whose only priority is to protect the lives and property of citizens, prevent crime, assist the most vulnerable groups, protect victims and guarantee that Barcelonans and Catalans can live and work. normally, without any physical or cyber threat interrupting the intense commercial, economic, social, cultural or educational activity, among many others.. We do not know or understand about torture or events that occurred when we were not even born.. What we do understand is that it is a legitimate, democratic profession subject to the rule of law,” the CEP emphasizes.
Furthermore, they oppose any transfer of that building in the face of “the insistent claim of certain Catalan social and political groups” that cannot condition the Ministry of the Interior and believe that, for that same reason, “they should request the closure of all the facilities of the Mossos d'Esquadra in which any case of torture has been registered in these decades” which for the union is “a ridiculous claim” since crimes “in a State of Law, are committed by people, convicted by a final sentence , and not institutions or buildings”. They also remember that the Government promised not to give up the Headquarters and regretted that “the withdrawal of the National Police in Catalonia, whether from a building or any staff, constitutes an attack on the rights of the citizens of that Autonomous Community.”
The union assures that “in an essential public service, such as security, there is no one left over and every resource is insufficient to fight crime and to protect the victims and those who are most vulnerable to hatred or extremism.. “Whoever defends that the National Police is unnecessary, that its buildings are a nuisance, is demonstrating that their sectarianism is of such caliber that they are capable of putting outdated political obsessions before the necessary security and protection of all.”