Our Catalonian correspondent Pampasnasturtium sends a translated article with the latest cultural enrichment news from Barcelona, followed by an overview of the political context in Catalonia.
First, a translated article from La Vanguardia:
Sexual gang-assault on a young woman in Santa Coloma de Gramenet [suburb of Barcelona]
November 11, 2018
Local police arrested 14 young men, also accused of stabbing her partner
[Photo caption (not shown) : Two of the attackers harassed the young woman inside the subway premises, at Can Peixauet station.]
Today local police in Santa Coloma de Gramenet arrested 14 young men accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in the town and stabbing her partner, as announced by Cadena Ser radio station. The incident took place at about 6am. Two of the attackers harassed the young woman inside the subway premises, and apparently they and their gang-mates groped her within the elevator of the Can Peixauet metro station.
The attackers are young men formerly under the guardianship of the regional Catalan government [ex-”tutelados“]*, all of them of Maghrebi ethnicity. According to police sources, they’re the inhabitants of a squat house located on Santa Coloma’s Generalitat Avenue, where they were arrested yesterday in the morning. The house was sealed off.
The detainees had previously been arrested by Santa Coloma’s local police a couple of times during recent days, because of their alleged involvement in different violent thefts. Most of them are allegedly affected by scabies, which has led the police cars they were transported in, as well as the police station and its cells, to have to be disinfected. Santa Coloma’s Town Council stated that joint action by local police and Mossos d’Esquadra [regional Catalan police] has made it possible to arrest all of those involved in this sexual assault.
The young [female] victim’s [male] partner was taken to Esperit Sant hospital to be assisted, and his present medical condition is non-life-threatening.
| * | Translator’s note: not mentioned in this particular report, they’re known as “mena”, that is, “menores extranjeros no acompañados”, unaccompanied foreign minors. The fact that now it is stated they’re no longer under such guardianship means they’re not legally minors anymore. |
Aftermath of the tragicomedy, so far
by Pampasnasturtium
On Monday evening, a minor (one of two alleged minors out of the fifteen arrested, instead of the fourteen initially reported) escaped.
Instead of boarding (as he was supposed to do) the van that would take them both from court (where the attorney had just set them free) to one of the regional-government Infancy and Adolescence Affairs Department premises, he just ran away.
The other minor complied.
On Tuesday, the acting judge jailed without bail five of the (adult) attackers, all of them accused of sexual assault against the young woman, and three of them also stand accused of attempted murder, with a knife, against the victim’s partner.
On Tuesday some 500 persons marched against “all forms of” male/patriarchal violence (“violencia machista”), to show “solidarity” with the victims, to call for a harmonious living-together, AND against racism and against “stigmatizing the young”.
A façade of officialdom and institutional character was given by the openly stated support and organization of the march by Santa Coloma’s Town Council, the local Federation of Neighbors and Neighboresses (sic) Associations (“Federació d’Associacions de Veïns i Veïnes”), and the local Women’s Associations Council.
Such organizations denounced “the emerging signs of racism and xenophobia visible on social networks” against young immigrants, which are “an incendiary discourse and endanger the very coexistence and security of our male and female (sic) children”.
Tense moments ensued after two of the administrative staff of anti-immigration party Plataforma per Catalunya (PxC) showed up with a megaphone and started making such proclamations.
Police kept the groups separate, and the two guys were cornered by the neighbors and then expelled, which mayoress Núria Parlon called a “democratic lesson against those who would break coexistence and profit from the situation”.
(Source)
On Thursday, the regional Catalan government and Santa Coloma de Gramenet’s town council agreed on the formation of a commission to follow up on “very” (sic) vulnerable youth.
Work, Families and Social Affairs Minister Chakir El Homrani stated that “every vulnerability situation, especially within the frame of migration processes, we want to work out”.
Mayoress Núria Parlon stated that some programs will be reinforced with “a bit more resources”, thus improving money-endowments for social purposes.
Home Minister Miquel Buch stated that eight adults and two minors are not a part of “what happened”.
(Source)
My comment: Good luck to you if you thought that by “very vulnerable youth” (literally) our betters meant girls like the one assaulted, or guys like the one stabbed!
A bit of political/historical background on some of the playful characters on this operetta buffa:
Santa Coloma de Gramenet’s Town Council:
Santa Coloma’s 2014 Women’s Calendar pays homage and celebrates the presence of women in politics
The edition features the full 42 town-councilors or ex-town-councilors of the city — an initiative of the Gender Equality Policies Dept. (Departamento de Políticas de Igualdad de Género).
So much gender equality — except they had a police track record of invading, foreign petty criminals engaging in violent theft and squatting in the town, and still they let them remain there until a young girl was actually physically abused. Knowing the precedent of Cologne’s New Year’s Eve 2015-2016, and the identity of the perpetrators having been widely reported here, why no vigorous preventive action like internment and deportation, when the danger was so clear?
Santa Coloma installs LGTBI traffic lights featuring same-sex couples
Caption: Inclusive traffic lights in Santa Coloma de Gramenet.
There WAS money for things like that, but it is only now that, as translated above, “some programs will be reinforced with “a bit more resources”, thus improving money-endowments for social purposes.”
Núria Parlon, Santa Coloma de Gramenet’s mayoress:
Lots of “feminist” proclamations on that timeline.
Yet it apparently took her a millisecond to come to the defense of (and look for public-money financial support for) the culture-enrichers and chuck the young female sexual assault victim under the bus (and, of course, praise the mobbing of those ugly xenophobes who’d want their wives and daughters to be able to circulate freely and safely through the streets of their very hometown — how dare they!)
Henriette “stay at arm’s length” Reker’s school of fake feminism, anyone?
Esther Sara Cabanas, directress of the regional Catalan government’s General Council of Services to Infancy and Adolescence (Direcció General d’Atenció a la Infància i l’Adolescència):
Together with Blanca Arbell, Canet de Mar’s mayoress, conducted the official meeting of last Monday evening in Canet de Mar where (aware of the negative transformation of public perception after that weekend’s gang attack) support for reception alternatives and more material resources for culture-enrichers were searched for.
Banned the presence of media reporters inside the event, while condemning the local media for “stigmatizing (unaccompanied foreign minors) and treating them like monsters”.
Power trumps sisterhood, much?
(Source)
Blanca Arbell, Canet de Mar’s mayoress:
At the beginning of this month it was revealed that the mayoress had committed Canet de Mar’s only children’s summer camp villa, a private estate owned by her, to hosting, for an indefinite time, fifty unaccompanied foreign minors under the guardianship of the regional Catalan government (“tutelados”).
Neither the municipal opposition parties, nor local schools, pupils parents’ associations or related charities, were ever informed of the move until it was a closed deal.
Before that, the villa was committed to hosting the town’s local children’s summer camps until 2020.
At the end of this report, she states she’s not losing money, “we’re even” she summarizes.
(Source)
Addendum/miscellany:
While researching this long piece, I found out that one of the two major Spanish unions also wants in on the pie.
In the link below, they denounce the conditions at reception centers of the Catalan government’s General Council of Services to Infancy and Adolescence (Direcció General d’Atenció a la Infància i l’Adolescència).
I was aghast when I read among their list of complaints that “The clothes (the hosted minors) are given are low-quality and even second-hand” (“La roba que se’ls atorga és de baixa qualitat o fins i tot de segona mà.”).
WOW! I used to go to second-hand shops for (properly cared for and usable) clothes when I was a student, and not only back then, and lots of people resort to them without any tarnish to their honor or dignity, but hey, who knew, these “children” are not getting nothing-but-the-best, and how can we tolerate that?!
Glad to learn that the Mossos d’ Esquadra were involved. It is not only a “regional police”, they are strictly no- nonsense- no-talking -back law enforcement.
Second hand clothing? What do human right watchers say about this? Can I still make claims for juvenile traumatisms caused by having to wear used clothes? Irony off: they were upscale coming from a millionaire household where a cousin worked as a maid in the fifties, and from American embassy personnel, so I had real dandy gear that lifted my spirits up in those days.
LBGTI traffic lights? We’ve had those in Trafalgar Square for years. London leads the way! (in what, I’m not sure.)