The demonstration of the Diada -Catalonia's national day- on the 11th September will be in Barcelona's plaça d'Espanya and surrounding streets, this year. The motto of this year's edition, aside will be claiming independence and denouncing repression, make a call to parties and the pro-independence civil society organisations to construct a "strategic unity". This was announced this morning in a joint conference press by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Òmnium and the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI).
The plaça d'Espanya will be the central spot for the demonstration, but supporters will start gathering from the different streets that converge into the square: carrer Creu Coberta, Tarragona, Gran Via, Paral·lel and l'avinguda Maria Cristina. The intention from ANC, the organisers of the yearly Diada's editions, is to fill all the surrounding streets to symbolise that "from different paths we agree on a common objective": independence.
According to ANC's president Elisenda Paluzie, this "strategic unity" stems "from the diversity of views, without giving up on any, we agree on a common goal", and she reiterated that the streets converging on the square will be the symbol of the "different stand points" and the square, the epicentre of this "common goal".
The intention is to fill up most of these streets, even if ANC has not yet specified how many kilometers this would mean. They have announced future updates where the final route will be presented. What was clear from the statement is that this year's edition will go further along plaça d'Espanya square itself.
This year's t-shirt & motto
The motto for the demonstration, also announced this morning, is "the independence goal". The t-shirt is turquoise blue and it has a white star with yellow dotted propellers symbolising the different ways and visions fuelling the movement. ANC will have this available for sale in their local branches across Catalonia. A website will also be launched for the citizenship of Catalonia to be able to put their names down for their chosen section of the rally -as done in previous editions and facilitate monitoring of a uniform occupation of the route. The launching of the website will be announced at a later date.
This year's edition will be the eighth yearly demonstration called by ANC for the Diada in order to claim Catalonia's independence.