Call of the movement Mugitu! to publish press releases, notes or letters of solidarity with the opponents to the HSL prosecuted for pieing the Navarrese president Yolanda Barcina:
From the movement of disobedience to the HSL of Euskal Herria Mugitu! we call all the groups and people defending the civil disobedience as a way of struggle to express your solidarity and support of the three opponents to the HSL prosecuted in the Spanish Special Court “Audiencia Nacional” as a result of the action of pie throwing against the HSL carried out on the Navarrese president Yolanda Barcina last 27 of October in Toulouse. The action of pieing, which in any place of the western world is merely a humorous action of protest that has very few legal consequences, is in our case, however, object of a political and media criminalization that borders on ridicule: so much so that the three authors of the protest may be sentenced to jail sentences as they have been prosecuted under the accusation of “attack” against the authority in the Special Court “Audiencia Nacional” of Madrid, the exceptional court which mostly deals with crimes described as “terrorism” and before which they will have to make a statement on 16 of November.
For this reason, we want to call you all to express your solidarity with the defendants publishing a press release, a brief note in the media or a letter of support in terms of denunciation of the manipulation and political criminalisation, rejection of the HSL and support to disobedience; that is to say, denouncing the clear manipulative and criminalising spirit of the process driven by the Government of Navarre and defending civil disobedience as a way of fighting the imposition of great infrastructures that bring about serious ecological, economic and social impacts, as it is the case of the HSL in our country.
The call is framed within the initiatives of support and solidarity with the defendants which have been decided in an assembly of last Sunday 6 of November in Pamplona under the motto “I would do also it! HSL STOP: Disobedience”.
Looking forward to your solidarity, we also want to invite you to spread this call around you and to send any manifestation of support that is made public to the following address. Thank you very much…
Movement Mugitu!
@mail: mugituaht@gmail.com
Tel: (0034) 654480589
Account of what happened between the anti-HSL pieing in Toulouse and the transfer of the case to the Spanish Special Court “Audiencia Nacional”:
The movement Mugitu! of disobedience to the HSL –in fight against the imposition of the “Basque Y” and the “Navarrese corridor of High speed”–, supported by the Occitan movement Libertat, made a protest action on 27 of October interrupting the 29th Plenary Council of the CTP (Community of Work of the Pyrenees) that was being held in the Occitan city of Toulouse and throwing three meringue pies in the face of the president of the Foral Community of Navarre Yolanda Barcina, with the aim of denouncing the imposition of the HSL in our country. Indeed, the Basque Government and the Navarrese are determined to impose these disputed projects at a time when the construction of new lines of High speed is questioned in many countries because of its ruinous and destructive character. At the same time of the pieing, we demonstrators explained the reasons of the action in the meeting room, showed posters and shouted slogans against the HSL as we threw leaflets demanding the immediate paralysation of the “Basque Y” works and the abandonment of the project of the Navarrese corridor of the HST, infrastructures of high ecological, economic and social impact in our country and characterized by an absolute lack of information and social debate, refusing the participation of the population in the decision making. “In any case – we said–, the solutions must be found in a deep transformation of the present society, because the crisis is becoming worse and it is evident that we must not only reduce and distribute the “pie”, but also and mainly change its recipe”.
In Toulouse , the action of the pieing was made without any other incidents, taking place like anywhere else in the world as a humorous action of protest that has very few legal consequences. There was no intervention from the police or from the agents in charge of the security of the meeting, so nobody was arrested and after the action, the activists even gave a small press conference in the outside of the building explaining the reasons for the protest. Nevertheless, in the Spanish state, the Government of Navarre immediately made a public declaration of “condemnation”, conceived with clear aims of politically manipulating and criminalising the anti-HSL pie throws, finally suspending the activity of the foral parliament and boasting about being a victim, which bordered on ridicule, whereas in the street the action was received with an enormous delight in ample sectors of the population.
In view of the informative poisoning started by the Government of Navarre, those of us who took part in the action quickly decided to call a press conference for the following day in Pamplona, with the purpose of giving all the details about the protest and in order to deny the supposed “violent” character of the pie throws, making clear that this form of action does not mean to cause physical harm to the chosen person, but to damage the image of the authority that he /she represents. But as soon as we arrived in Pamplona in the afternoon of the 28th, the Foral Police arrested the three activists of the group in the street, when they were going to the press conference. The police said that they were accused of “Attack to the authority” and transferred them to police station. When we contacted several lawyers, these showed their surprise about the circumstances in which the arrests were made, as there were apparently no judicial diligences in the country where the protest had taken place. Concerning the arrests, it must be said that the last person who was set free had spent 22 hours in jail and denounced the treatment received since he had been prevented from sleeping during the night. The arrested were forced to give DNA samples as an indispensable condition to be released, although neither is it obligatory nor did it have any justification in this case since the action had been public and the arrested people were going to give a press conference, also public.
Finally, our companions were set free by the Foral Police that charged them for a crime of “attack to the authority”, in addition transferring the case to the Spanish Special Court “Audiencia Nacional”. In other words, the Navarrese president Yolanda Barcina, who considered, in her first declarations, the action of the anti-HSL pieing to be “a very sweet beginning” for her presidency at the front of the CTP, has not accepted the “sweetness” of our protest very well. It is so much so that with the accusation made, these three people may be sentenced to jail by an exceptional court, before which they have been called to make a statement next 16 of November