The reform of the Penal Code that the PSOE and United We Can have processed this morning is limping. This is how a good part of the independence movement thinks so, especially with regard to the modifications introduced in the crime of aggravated public disorder. Òmnium Cultural is one of the critical entities and this afternoon its president, Xavier Antich, stated that the expansion of this crime "is a step forward in the pursuit of the right to protest and the criminalization of political dissidence." The entity has welcomed the repeal of sedition with better eyes, but it is not happy either: "It does not respond to all those reprisals by the State."
In this way, Antich believes that the step taken by the ERC with the PSOE and United We Can to bring down the sedition "dangerously" expands the crime of public disorder.
The entity's leader has expressed his "enormous concern" about the introduction of the concept of "intimidation" in the crime of public disorder. A sufficiently subjective term to cover a wide range of situations. “Who decides when there is bullying? The same ones who decreed prison for Jordi Cuixart for participating in a demonstration and exercising the right to protest? ”, He has asked himself rhetorically. And it is that for Antich the changes facilitate "the continuous violation of the fundamental rights of citizenship by a State that does not tolerate political discrepancy or dares to democratically face the political conflict."
Nor does repeal of sedition from the Penal Code fully satisfy Òmnium. Antich has repeated that it is a "totally anti-democratic and anachronistic" crime, whose sole purpose is "to repress protests and political dissent" by an authoritarian state. However, he has lamented that its suppression does not respond to "all the people who are subject to reprisals" for exercising fundamental rights. That is why he believes it is essential to reach this objective of amnesty and self-determination.
