''Franco would be proud of modern Spain''. That was the assertion of Aamer Anwar, Scottish lawyer of the Catalan minister Clara Ponsatí, in his speech to Tuesday's million-strong march in Barcelona in favour of Catalan independence (in English, video below). In a powerful address, Anwar also said that the Spanish state is conducting itself like a ''fascist dictatorship" and accused the Spanish executive led by Pedro Sánchez of an approach which amounted to "state terrorism'' rather than working for negotiation.
Anwar said that Catalonia's current situation, with its politicians imprisoned, is like negotiating with a gangster who has kidnapped your family and is holding ''a gun to the head of your children''. ''Is it a peaceful solution or is it blackmail?", the lawyer asked rhetorically, ''is it negotiation or is it state terror?" Anwar says quite clearly that if the Pedro Sánchez government is searching for a ''political solution'' it must ''free all the hostages" - as he calls them - "and allow the exiles to come home''.
Anwar recalled that on 1st October, the Spanish state did all it could to ''besiege and intimidate the Catalan people'' and because of that he affirms that Franco would be ''proud of modern Spain ...and of the so-called socialist Pedro Sánchez''. Anwar gave the Catalans a message of optimism: "You have the ideas, the dreams, the people power and you are on the right side of history".
The lawyer also recalled that in Scotland the right to vote for independence is recognized. He said that the right to self-determination is ''a fundamental human right'' and that, ''after 300 years of oppression, Spain will not be able to crush the aspirations of Catalonia to restore its independence''. Anwar added that he admires the ''courage'' of the prisoners, the ''exiles'' and all the people of Catalonia, and he asserted that when the Spanish government talks of ''decapitating'' a movement, it was talking 'about 'silencing a movement and a people''. In this attempt, the lawyer said he was convinced that "they would fail''.