Catalan pro-independence leader Elisenda Paluzie has revealed on television that her mobile phone is being tapped, and she asserts that "the [Spanish] government of the PSOE and Podemos" is responsible. Paluzie, who is leader of the largest pro-independence civil society organization, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), also says that other members of the ANC leadership are in the same situation.
"We have our mobile phones tapped. They have been interfered with by the secret services of the PSOE and Podemos government," she said to the programme Tot es mou on Catalan public channel TV3.
Paluzie explained that a few months after taking over the presidency of the ANC, her mobile phone was checked, and it was detected that an element had been installed to record her, as well as another that extracted everything she typed as text.
"You feel under surveillance, we have a state that has as its objective to put an end to the independence movement. And we must be aware of this, that the state is dedicated to this," she added.
ANC leader Elisenda Paluzie tells TV3 that since 2018 her cellphone has contained spyware that records her calls and texts and send them to an external destination.
Paluzie made the remarks after it transpired last weekend that a judge had approved 15 orders for phone tapping on people close to the exiled Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, according to the newspaper El Mundo. "The illicit preparations for an alleged new sedition-rebellion persist in circles close to Puigdemont and in key elements connected to the referendum and the previous unilateral declaration," the newspaper noted, citing police sources.
In July this year, in a story broken by UK daily The Guardian, it also transpired that the mobile phone of the speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Roger Torrent, had been tapped using the advanced spy programme Pegasus, something that Torrent had become aware of when a check was carried out on his phone.
Some ANC rallies this Friday booked out
Paluzie explained to TV3 today that a total of 13 rallying points for this Friday's Catalan National Day commemorations are already no longer accepting more registrations. Due to Covid-19, the ANC has replaced its usual mass rally on the Diada national day with a series of small, socially-distanced events around Catalonia, with on-line reservation compulsory in order to maintain public-health safety.
The thirteen rallies that have already reached their capacity are as follows:
- Plaça Letamendi (Barcelona)
- Sants, Barcelona (Estació de Sants)
- Cardona (Balcó de la fira)
- Cerdanyola (Parc del Turonet)
- Cornellà de Llobregat (Carretera d’Esplugues)
- Girona (Estació d’Adif)
- Manresa (Pati del Casino)
- Mollerussa (Plaça de l’Ajuntament)
- Rubí (Davant els jutjats)
- Sant Feliu de Guíxols (Passeig del Mar)
- Tarragona (Subdelegació del govern espanyol)
- Tortosa (Centro de Atención e Información de la Seguridad Social)
- Vilanova i la Geltrú (Plaça del mercat)
This Friday's Diada will be marked by around a hundred mobilizations across Catalonia. The Assembly has said that due to the good response from volunteers and those attending, some local ANC groups are considering ways to expand their planned capacity, in all cases taking into account public health requirements and the characteristics of the specific location. "Catalonia will hold the largest mobilization adapted to Covid-19 in Europe," said Elisenda Paluzie.
The programme for September 11th has been organized by the ANC, second civil society group Òmnium Cultural and the Association of Municipalities for Independence. The groups are demanding the tools of an independent state in order to deal with the crisis, and also to defend fundamental rights, such as that of protest.
Paluzie reported that Procicat, the Catalan civil protection authority which controls the measures against coronavirus, "has approved the public health safety measures of the Diada mobilizations."