The Catalan Society of Sociolinguistics (SOCS), a subsidiary of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, has issued a statement regarding the "political offensive against the use of Catalan by the authorities of the Kingdom of Spain" urging the international scientific community to request the UNESCO and the Council of Europe " investigate and, where appropriate, formally condemn the policies that clearly seek to harm the Catalan-speaking community." The SOCS sends this statement to international scientific societies and journals so that they help disseminate it.
Declaration in relation to the political offensive against the use of Catalan by the
authorities of the Kingdom of Spain.
The SOCS is a scientific society that brings together scholars in sociolinguistics from
the Catalan-speaking territories. As such, we have felt that it is our duty to inform the
scientific community that the Kingdom of Spain is in breach of several international
treaties that concern the protection and respect of cultural and linguistic diversity as
well as minority language rights, especially in relation to the Catalan language.
This statement is sent for informative purposes to international scientific societies and
journals so that they contribute to disseminate the information and also manifest their
concern to international organizations and bodies devoted to the safeguard of human
rights and cultural heritage.
1. New linguistic persecution in Spain
Several public institutions of the Kingdom of Spain have launched a political offensive
against the Catalan language. The offensive is led by the central government, the
regional governments of Aragon, the Balearic Islands and Valencia, as well as some
municipalities. In all cases, these policies and the various legislative and administrative
initiatives are carried out by the Popular Party, which is one of Spains’ two major
parties in both the central government and in most autonomous regions and local
authorities.
In the Balearic Islands and Valencia, where the Catalan language is compulsory in
education, the regional governments now promote a Catalan-Spanish-English trilingual
model intended to disrupt the use of Catalan as a medium of instruction in many
schools. The Balearic government is exerting pressure on teachers and parents to
increase the use of Spanish in the classroom. It has also recently eliminated the
requirement of proficiency in Catalan to work in the regional administration. The
Valencian regional government pursues the same objective through passive resistance: it
presently dispenses only 25% of the demand by families who demand an education in
Catalan to which they are entitled to by law.
However, the aspect that displays more blatantly the political intention to undermine the
teaching and use of Catalan is the concerted strategy to promote divergent linguistic
varieties. In Valencia, the regional government has for years treated "Valencian" as a
separate language to the point of banning the use of the term "Catalan" in different
contexts and not recognizing university degrees in "Catalan Philology" awarded by
Valencian universities or certificates of knowledge of the Catalan language issued by
other authorities and schools. On 19 June 2013, the parliamentary Popular group in the
Valencian Parliament presented a proposal urging the Real Academia Española to
change the definition of "valenciano" in its dictionary, arguing that it is a language
separate from Catalan. In the Balearic Islands, the regional government has declared the
intention to scrutinize textbooks to include “Balearic” colloquialisms. In Aragon, the
parliament has just passed a language law that proposes a new name for the Catalan
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"Lengua Aragonesa Propia del Área Oriental” ‘Eastern Aragonese Language’. This
initiative has resulted in concerted protests among linguists and scholars from around
the world1.
In 2007, the regional government of Valencia illegally decreed the closure of the
broadcasts of TV3, the most widely watched Catalan television channel, in its territory.
Currently, the Spanish Parliament is processing a state-wide educational reform bill that
aims to marginalize Catalan from the curriculum in the regions where it is currently on
an equal official footing with Spanish (in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands)2.
In Valencia and Aragon, right-wing agitation groups have a long tradition of sabotages
to local cultural and political organizations, and assaults and threats to writers and
Catalan activists. In recent years reports of police harassment by citizens who claim
false accusations and threats for speaking Catalan have increased. In none of these cases
policemen have been sanctioned by the Spanish judicial authorities, which extends
amongst the population an impression of having no effective legal protection.
2. The international community on the situation
The international academic community knows that Catalan is the language spoken in
the Pyrenees Orientales in France, in the state of Andorra, in the Principality of
Catalonia, in the Eastern Aragon Strip, in Valencia, in the Balearic Islands and in the
enclaves of Alghero (Italy) and el Carxe (Spain).
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages commits authorities
(Articles 7.b and 7.1.e) to respect the geographical area of each language and the
relations between the regions in which it is spoken. The Committee of Ministers of the
Council of Europe (20053 and 20084) has recommended Spain to apply a specific legal
framework to protect the Catalan and Aragonese languages spoken in Aragon, using
exactly these names. In the third report of the Expert Committee (24 October 2012), it
called on authorities to maintain the current level of legal protection for Catalan and
Aragonese before the current law was passed. In particular, given that Spain must
deliver its fourth report on the implementation of the European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages to the Council of Europe in July 2013, we ask that the Board and
its Committee of experts carry out a thorough investigation over the policies undertaken
by regional governments regarding the Catalan language. The aforesaid actions also
contravene the spirit of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage5.
We believe that the Kingdom of Spain operates in contravention to the spirit of the
fundamental rights to cultural diversity contained in the international legal order. In
particular, the Kingdom of Spain operates contrary to UNESCO's mission to "create the
conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect
for commonly shared values" and "contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of
poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the
sciences, culture, communication and information." At the same time, it ignores the
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recommendations emanating from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, mainly from the Oslo Recommendations6 and the Recommendations of The
Hague7.
3. Actions
We believe it is necessary that the international community takes a stance in the face of
the fact that the Spanish authorities flagrantly pursue the weakening of the linguistic
vitality of the Catalan-speaking community through the implementation of policy
measures that impede communication between users and the diffusion of cultural
production and media in Catalan. At the same time, the existence of groups causing
unrest and sabotage in complicity with these policies should be cause for concern.
In view of these developments, we ask scientific bodies and scientific societies of the
world to send their requests to UNESCO and the Council of Europe so that they
investigate and, where appropriate, formally condemn the policies that clearly seek to
harm the Catalan-speaking community.
Notes
1 Manifiesto de la comunidad científica internacional a favor del reconocimiento y dignificación de las
lenguas minoritarias de Aragón. http://www.roldedeestudiosaragoneses.org/manifiesto-de-la-comunidadcientifica-
internacional-a-favor-del-reconocimiento-y-dignificacion-de-las-lenguas-minoritarias-dearagon-
93/
2 See http://www.mecd.gob.es/servicios-al-ciudadano-mecd/participacion-publica/lomce.html
3 See http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/report/EvaluationReports/SpainECRML1_es.pdf
4 See http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/report/EvaluationReports/SpainECRML2_es.pdf, and
also Recomendation 5 of the 3rd Report
(http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/minlang/report/EvaluationReports/SpainECRML3_en.pdf, 24
October 2012, ref. ECRML (2012) 5, p. 16.
5 See http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001325/132540e.pdf
6 The Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities,
http://www.osce.org/hcnm/67531
7 The Hague Recommendations regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities,
http://www.osce.org/hcnm/32180
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