Spain is the only country in the world that won’t allow international inspections by the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) of its curious regime of a monarchy of parties (or particracy,) which has lead it to be included in the “black list” of countries with limited freedom such as Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kosovo. Whilst condemning Spain on the one hand, the OSCE values the democratic progress made in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Moldavia, Kazakhstan, Belorussia, Azerbaijan, the Ukraine, and Montenegro in their penal, border, judicial, industrial policies, freedom of the press, copyright, gender violence, and the environment with respect to communiqués of reprobation similar to those featuring the Spanish regime.
On the other hand, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, Croatia, Hungary, Moldavia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and the Ukraine have allowed inspections, with independent diplomats of the OSCE acting as observers, to check if democratic conditions apply with regard to the right of their fellow citizens to hold meetings and demonstrations.
Diplomats all around the world look on in amazement as Spain denies its citizens the right to hold demonstrations and meetings and begin to wonder how a country with 6 million unemployed, 2 million expatriates, and 1 million malnourished children doesn’t take to the streets more often against the authorities. In fact OSCE fact sheets are compulsory reading in the world of diplomacy and are received in every member country of the organisation.
This official European organisation, which looks out for the freedoms of countries which want to corroborate the quality of their democracy, last Friday had to issue an official communiqué from Vienna (Austria) condemning Spain for the expulsion of 6 diplomats who came to inspect the demonstration with the slogan Jaque al Rey (Check to the King) which was aiming to protest against the corruption of the Spanish crown and the lack of a referendum for people to legitimize it, together with the demand for a constituent process to establish the main characteristics of democratic regimes: division of powers, direct election of representatives, freedom to demonstrate and hold meeting, etc.
Today the OSCE is the most politically influential worldwide organisation on the planet and Spain belongs to it, which has left democratic diplomats perplexed: “With 57 states in Europe, Central Asia and North America, the OSCE is the largest organisation for regional security in the world” they point out and, in fact, the 6 observers expelled from Spain are part of their staff: Omar Fisher, Irina Urumova, Aleksandra Dloubak, Bartlomiej Lipinski, Marcin Jezulin and Yevgenia Aretisova.
In an unusual gesture loaded with significance, the official OSCE communiqué against Spain is signed by the Slovakian diplomat Janez Lenarcic, their highest representative and director of the Office responsible for inspecting Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR). Ambassador Lenarcic makes clear that Spain agreed before the international community to guarantee freedom to hold meetings and the international control that verifies this must always be preserved.
With the arrival of a new PP government and the stable alliance with the PSOE, to which “monarchic regime” refers, the only thing that the OSCE has been able to establish is that “this change is surprising” because, before this, the authorised diplomats could check on the state of freedom in Spain with “good cooperation” and now they can’t, as their representatives are expelled.
Four months ago, in May to be precise, President Mariano Rajoy and minister Garcia Margallo “agreed to cooperate fully” with the OSCE allowing inspectors to check on the state of freedom in Spain. After images which flooded televisions and newspapers in half the world with the brutal repression of the mass demonstration of Rodea el Congreso (Surround Congress) organised by Coordinadora 25-S, the 25 September Group (the same civic association that organised Jaque al Rey), the international diplomats feared the worst.
And that is in fact what happened: 1,400 police for between 2,000 and 9,000 demonstrators, according to figures given by the government and the organisers and, in addition to this, previous detentions, massive identity checks, closure of a metro station (Opera) to prevent access, blocking buses with participants, etc. Last 25 September all this was also accompanied by prolonged detentions in police stations, fines, police aggression and even “confiscating subversive material,” since the Delegation of the Madrid Government, presided by the still convalescing Cristina Cifuentes, alleged that the flag sticks and the placards were in reality material to attack the police.
Ambassador Janez lenarcic, however, doesn’t seem to believe the version of the Spanish authorities with regard to preventing inspection. “The sudden opposition on the part of the Spanish authorities concerns us as to its intentions” says the OSCE in its public statement, at the same time asking the Spanish politicians in power to “guarantee full respect for the freedom to hold peaceful meetings in accordance with agreements with the OSCE and other international norms of human rights.”
The fact is that for the OSCE every country has its problem and the protests of its citizens reflect this, with underlying concern about government repression. In Spain it is “the institution of the crown,” in Serbia it is equal rights for homosexuals, in Russia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, freedom of the press.
http://www.helpcatalonia.cat/2013/12/europe-includes-spain-in-black-list-of.html
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