About thirty victims of political reprisals to stand for election
Among them are Tamara Carrasco, Roger Español and Jordi Pesarrodona
BarcelonaSome thirty victims of political reprisals have signed a manifesto to promote a grouping of electors - a one-off group who contests an election without forming a political party - for the upcoming elections, scheduled for February 14, as published by Vilaweb and some of its members have confirmed on Twitter. Among them are Tamara Carrasco, Roger Español, Jordi Pesarrodona and Sergi, one of accused over the Lledoners incident.
The platform is called Assemblea de Represaliats i Activistes (ARA). As they explain in the manifesto, their objective is to "visualize all the reprisals" in the Parliament, "end the impunity of the Mossos d'Esquadra" - the Catalan police who they accuse of "assaulting, abusing power" or "accusing without evidence" - and "explain the real functioning of the Parliament to the people". Furthermore, they pursue the independence of Catalonia, they promise that "everything" will be "endorsed" by the people, they defend ecology and they assure that if they reach the Parliament they will renounce to "expenses payments and lifelong pensions", as well as allocate part of their salary to "minority entities". They also propose choosing candidates through "open lists".
"Tired of suffering, we have decided to attack them where it hurts most, we want to change the rules of the game, and make the ministers have to think of the people and for the people", they claim in the manifesto, in which they express their will to confront the "political class, put them in front of the mirror and make them see that they will never be able to govern again without the people". "We have grown tired of being taken advantage of," they say.
The first step that they will have to take now if they want to present a battle in the elections is to gather the signatures that the electoral law establishes, which establishes that the groups of electors have to collect 1% of the signatures of each circumscription. Thus, in Barcelona they need 42,000; 5,000 in Girona, 3,000 in Lleida and almost 6,000 in Tarragona.
