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The Spanish public state television channel, TVE, 'erased' the image of the president of the Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, during the live broadcast of the minute's silence tribute held this Friday at noon in the Plaza Catalunya of Barcelona, for the victims of the terrorist attack.

The frames of the first line of officials attending the ceremony were practically limited to focusing on the image of King Felipe VI, who headed the event, and on his right, the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, as well as the deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. In contrast, Puigdemont, located by protocol to the left of the monarch, is practically invisible during most of the broadcast.

In fact, the Catalan president, as well as the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, the vice president, Oriol Junqueras, and other Catalan politicians only appear in the final part of the broadcast, when it shows a wide shot of the protest attended by thousands of people. That said, the TVE website did use an image of Felip VI flanked by the Spanish and Catalan leaders to lead its report, as can be seen below.

International television channels such as the BBC and Sky News have broadcast the same images from the same signal as TVE. Others, however, such as CNN, have shown all the politicians present in the foreground The intention behind the images on TVE has not gone unnoticed on social media.

"It's an embarassment that [Puigdemont] wasn't at the minute's silence. Oh, sorry, yes he was, but out of shot."

The writer Suso de Toro has spoken of the "pure media offensive". "It is not innocent, it's guilty. Today there's no rest for the 'cosmetic media'. Long live the Mossos", he wrote on Twitter.