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Statement regarding the sentence for the 8N strike

Image by Lorena Calpena

It is not the first time that Pirates de Catalunya needs to condemn the politicization of justice, which we have suffered in first hand for exercising the right to receive and disseminate information, the freedom of expression and even the right to vote.

Today, as members of the European Pirates, we have to defend again two rights that every democracy should have as a priority: the right to demonstrate and the right to strike, which justice today wants to void of content. We are doing this once again, since, for the simple fact of exercising them, our fellow member Francisco Garrobo has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison, and three more fellows to lesser sentences. The Court establishes, without any evidence, that they exercised an alleged violence, when the same riot police declared that they decided not to act because of the peaceful nature of the demonstration and the lack of any sign of violence or “disturbance of the public peace.

In addition, the court relies on Supreme Court ruling 459/2019 which, under the presidency of Manuel Marchena, openly expanded the concept of “violence,” even creating a new type, “compulsive violence,” to ensure the condemnation of the political prisoners of October 1st. Now, the same concept is used to condemn two more activists abusively.

The pirates raise our voices in front of this unjust condemnation that wants to cut our rights to demonstrate and to strike. A person is being unjustly condemned who mediated between demonstrators and security forces, saying that the picket line had not been communicated, when it is a right of general strikes. A person is being held responsible for supposedly “violent” acts of a picket line, even though not enough to justify an intervention by the anti-riot police, for the simple fact of offering to mediate between demonstrators and security forces, at the request of the latter. And all of this, recognizing that there is no record of his participation in either calling or organizing the mobilization.

The broadening of the concept of violence to criminalize all political protest is a flagrant violation of the most basic principles of democracy.  From Pirates de Catalunya we will continue to do everything in our power to defend democracy and the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Pirates de Catalunya

Statement by the Pirate Party of Catalonia on Hagia Sofia’s museum being transformed into a mosque

The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ordered the conversion of the Hagia Sofia Museum into a mosque. In the recent years, the use of that monument has become an example of the temperament of Istanbul city as a bridge between civilizations, cultures and religions.

Built in the sixth century as a Byzantine basilica, it was the seat of the patriarchate of Orthodox Christianity until its occupation by the Ottoman Empire, when it was transformed into a mosque. In 1934, the founder of the current Republic of Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, decided to transform it into a museum and make it one of the emblems of the new secular republic.

President Erdogan, with this action, not only continues his policy of restoring the power of the Ottoman Caliphate in the contemporary world, but also consciously and systematically dismantles the entire secular legacy that Atatürk left to the citizens of the Republic of Turkey. This change of status of the quintessential Istanbul monument is the latest episode in a series of attacks carried out under Erdogan’s direction in order to eradicate the rich and diverse history of the peoples who have lived in the Anatolian peninsula, which is patrimony of all humanity. 

With this decision, Erdogan openly certifies his authoritarian policy of demolishing the secular state and annihilating country’s cultural and religious diversity.

Pirates defend the respect for all opinions and beliefs, as long as they do not violate the dignity and right of others. Accordingly, we think that states should be secular and should not promote any religion or grant a specific creed privileges over others. For this reason, and in the same way that our colleagues in the Pirate Party of Turkey and the Pirate Party of Greece have done, we reject the change of status of the Hagia Sofia Museum.

In addition, and in line with what organizations such as UNESCO or ICOMOS have expressed, we call for international talks to ensure that the artistic and cultural heritage is properly preserved and that an exceptional monument such as the Hagia Sofia continues being a World Heritage Site as it has been so far.

Pirates de Catalunya

Privacy and consent in the time of coronavirus

Now more than ever is publicly debated the government and private companies’ position regarding our data, its privacy, and what they are used for. From Pirates de Catalunya not only are we against the violation of our rights that the government wants to carry out taking advantage of the Covid-19 crisis, but we are also against its versions wrongfully called “voluntary data cession,” and which are similar to those often carried out by a large part of the population in favor of private companies (Google, Facebook, etc.), because it’s questionable whether this is a consented cession or not. Usually, it isn’t.

1) First, it has to be taken into account that it is not possible to consent to something of which you don’t understand the consequences. The same way that it is not deemed that minors can agree to specific issues that violate their rights because it is evident that they still don’t have enough maturity and information to have well-founded judgment and to make fully conscious decisions. Citizens have a significant knowledge gap on the consequences that all this (“consented”) invasion on their privacy rights involves. Never anybody has informed us about personal privacy topics, and which effects have the violation of this fundamental right, partly because it’s not convenient that citizens understand it. And if the decision is not informed, it is not free.

2) If there is any coercion, we cannot claim that the permission has been granted. In the vast majority of real cases, there are multiple coercions, such as economical, social, psychological, but the most common by companies or governments is unambiguous: they only provide specific services in exchange for your data (and if you refuse you can’t access them). This has direct implications with social inequality and privacy rights. People with more resources tend to have more rights (in this case, more privacy) because they can pay the services that other people can’t.

3) If you don’t know alternatives, you also don’t have freedom of choice. We live in a society where we need a series of tools for personal development and to be integrated into society. If you don’t know alternatives to those tools that you need to use, you’re not acting freely. Neither does anyone educate us on this topic (nor inform us of the alternatives that exist which are respectful to our rights). We should recognize as a society that right now, in our present world, there are a series of digital tools that are basic needs and, therefore, their access should be protected and granted by the State so that citizens are not forced to give up their rights to have access to them.

4) Even when there are alternatives to the services you need, you may be forced, due to the monopolistic practices of specific organizations (whether Whatsapp or the Government of Catalonia), to use abusive services where you “consent” to relinquish your data. Right now, if all your family is in Whatsapp and does not concede to change the service, either you accept to provide your data, or you become socially excluded. And in the case of the government, they may be forcing you to use specific software for arbitrary reasons. As a citizen, you haven’t any alternative but to use it. Right now, we don’t want to get into the solutions we can work on to tackle these problems (which are plenty), we only want to manifest the fallacy of the “voluntary” nature of the data cession.

If we take a general overview of all different cases, we realize that this “consented” cession can hardly be considered as such. The majority of people don’t give up their data “voluntarily and fully informed” but due to lack of knowledge of the consequences or because they are not aware or don’t see and alternative to giving them up, or because they feel pressured or forced to do so. In fact, in most cases, if the option of giving them up or not giving them up under the same conditions existed, it is clear that almost anybody would give them up.

From Pirates de Catalunya, we demand that the pandemic is not used as an excuse to gather sensitive data, neither involuntarily nor voluntarily massively. It’s a bad practice in general that anyone builds massive databases with confidential information of the citizens. It is uncertain what these databases can end up being used for once they exist, nor can their safeguard be guaranteed in perpetuity (such as against abusive governments, corrupt practices, negligence, criminality, etc.). And this window of opportunity opens when their gathering is allowed to take place.

Moreover, once you have a massive “voluntary” control of most of the citizens, it is much easier to control those who didn’t volunteer because they readily stand out. So these practices erode everyone’s privacy right, also from all those who didn’t voluntarily accept to give up their privacy, because they lose mass anonymity.

From Pirates, we know that if instead of talking about the privacy right, we were talking about another right in which we had received more education, as citizens we would see much clearer the threat of these proposals that are now made so lightly. For example, if we were talking about freedom of speech, how many of you would agree with a large part of the citizens “voluntarily” giving up this right massively? For instance, with the argument, “I don’t need freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.” Would you find it acceptable that the government asked for massive permission from the citizens to censor them and that a large part of the population agreed to lose this right? Wouldn’t you deem this as highly dangerous and give you the creeps?

Furthermore, we must also be cautious with the data “anonymization” fallacy. This is a term used very lightly every time this topic comes up to guarantee public acceptance, but that is most cases untrue. Anonymizing data is not an easy task; it is incredibly complex. Therefore, most of these “anonymizations” that are claimed to be carried out are usually very superficial and, hence, useless (with the technology available to us today is child’s play to deanonymize them). Unfortunately, this is a situation where the technical details acquire great importance and how this anonymization is carried out is vital to determine whether it is trustable. They take advantage of people’s unfamiliarity with this technology to create a false impression of trustworthiness, so that only mentioning this term. There isn’t any more questioning raised.

It is argued that it is necessary to “sacrifice” and “temporarily” give up our privacy right to overcome the pandemic, but it isn’t true. There are many ways to tackle this crisis, as the heterogeneity across different countries has evidenced. And, unfortunately, after this excuse to violate our privacy, there will be another and then another. There are plenty of measures that don’t break the privacy right that could be undertaken and which haven’t been adopted yet.

In summary, we Pirates advocate that the measures to leave the confinement (whenever the time comes) shouldn’t be based on individual identification and personalized controls of the population, regardless of how “voluntary” these are. It is dangerous in itself, and also as a precedent to invoke afterward. It is not healthy for a society that citizens are encouraged to renounce their rights. And, most of all, it shouldn’t be supported or asked from the authority figure that a government represents. What “freedom of choice” do the citizens have if the government (which is supposed to know what they are doing) tells you that to be a “good citizen,” you need to give up your data?

Pirates de Catalunya

Pirates de Catalunya proposes to leave the confinement without losing rights

These days of confinement, both the Catalan Government and the Spanish government are debating in the public sphere different initiatives aimed at establishing controls to try to stop the pandemic and, at the same time, keep the economy active. A delicate balance to achieve without some sacrifice. And it seems that the government and the elites have decided to sacrifice citizens’ rights to privacy and equality. As always, they try to make us choose between security and personal freedom by facing a false dilemma.

The proposals include informative applications that hide users’ geolocation systems, confirming they are where they claim to be or to identify who is already immune, intending to work and move freely. As comfortable as they may seem, these proposals do not contribute to fighting the pandemic but to eroding fundamental rights in the name of security. It’s the old-fashioned excuse, with a different cause. Before it was terrorism, now it is a pandemic that could have been contained more effectively and minimized if public health had not been savagely curtailed over the last decade.

We firmly believe that these proposals are detrimental because they violate the right to privacy, taking malicious advantage of the gravity of the situation we live in to control the citizens. Surveillance is not the only way to contain the virus, on the contrary, a committed and well-informed population is more efficient, and powerful, than one controlled and maintained in ignorance in a health crisis like the one we are experiencing.

It is unacceptable for an institutional application to conditions access to information about COVID19 to the activation of the geolocation of the mobile device. Our medical history and location cannot be left in the hands of the government to classify us as first-class citizens, with immunity to the virus, and second-class citizens, to whom freedom of movement is restricted “for their good.” We do not even know the long-term consequences of this virus; our data stored sine die by the government can very quickly become a weapon against us in the future, for example, in the hands of an insurer.

Regardless of the privacy issues, initiatives to identify people who have already been through the infection (such as the immunity passport) are highly irresponsible in themselves. Other than the fact that as of right now, we don’t know if being over the infection immunizes against it, these proposals reward risky behaviors on the part of the population that facilitate the contagion, instead of adopting measures to avoid it. The aim is to restrict freedom of movement to anyone who has not been over the virus, so the only way to avoid these restrictions is to be infected. Thus, the government itself is proposing to put large sections of the population in the face of an impossible choice: to sink into exclusion or to become infected and be able to work. This endangers not only the population at risk for whom this can be fatal but also people with fewer resources, as they are the ones who cannot afford to stay home and not go to work.

In the face of these proposals, we believe they should be avoided entirely. We have run too late to implement prevention policies, such as the use of masks and gloves and the rapid detection of infected persons, to minimize the effects of the pandemic as other countries have. However, to protect our rights and our health, we still have time to take similar measures here, which are progressive and do not exacerbate social inequalities, encourage discrimination on medical grounds, or put the population at risk.

Not everything is justified in the name of security. Not before, not now, not ever. We must inform ourselves, empower ourselves, and we take the necessary health, hygiene, and protection measures to take care of our health and that of the people around us, among all of us.

Pirates de Catalunya

Pirates de Catalunya proposes to leave the confinement without losing rights

These days of confinement, both the Catalan Government and the Spanish Government are debating in the public sphere different initiatives aimed at establishing controls to try to stop the pandemic and, at the same time, keep an active economy. A difficult balance to achieve without any sacrifices. And it seems that the government and the elites have decided to sacrifice citizens’ rights to privacy and equality. As always, they try to make us choose between security and personal freedom by facing a false dilemma.


The proposals include informative applications which hide users’ geolocation systems, confirming they are where they claim to be, or to identify those who are already immune, with the aim of letting them work and move freely. As convenient as they may seem, these proposals do not contribute to fight the pandemic, but to erode fundamental rights in the name of security. It’s the same old excuse, with a different cause. Before it was terrorism, now it is a pandemic that could have been minimized and contained more effectively if public health had not been savagely curtailed over the last decade. We firmly believe that these proposals are negative because they violate the right to privacy, taking malicious advantage of the gravity of the situation we live in to control the citizens. Surveillance is not the only way to contain the virus, on the contrary, a committed and well-informed population is more efficient, and powerful, than one controlled and maintained in ignorance in a health crisis like the one we are experiencing.


It is unacceptable for an institutional application to conditions access to information about COVID19 to the activation of the geolocation of the mobile device. Our medical history and location cannot be left in the hands of the Government in order to classify us as first-class citizens, with immunity to the virus, and second-class citizens, to whom freedom of movement is restricted “for their own good”. We do not even know the long-term consequences of this virus, our data stored sine die by the Government can very easily become a weapon against us in the future, for example, in the hands of an insurance company.


In fact, regardless of the privacy issues, initiatives to identify people who have already been through the infection (such as the immunity passport) are highly irresponsible in themselves. Other than the fact that as of right now we don’t know if being over the infection immunizes against it, these proposals reward risky behaviors from the population that facilitate the contagion, instead of adopting measures to avoid it. The aim is to restrict freedom of movement to anyone who has not been over the virus, so the only way to avoid these restrictions is to be infected. Thus, the government itself is proposing to put large sections of the population in the face of an impossible choice: to sink into exclusion or to become infected and be able to work. This endangers not only the population at risk for whom this can be fatal, but also people with fewer resources, as they are the ones who cannot afford to stay home and not go to work.
In the face of these proposals, we believe they should be completely avoided. We have run late to implement prevention policies, such as the use of masks and gloves and the rapid detection of infected persons, to minimize the effects of the pandemic, as other countries have. However, to protect our rights and our health, we still have time to take similar measures here, which are progressive and do not exacerbate social inequalities, encourage discrimination on medical grounds, or put the population at risk.


Not everything is justified in the name of security. Not before, not now, not ever. We must inform ourselves, empower ourselves and we take the necessary health, hygiene and protection measures to take care of our health and that of the people around us, together.


Pirates de Catalunya