wutang wrote:In December, Spain's interior ministry recommended installing barriers to stop any vehicle being driven into Las Ramblas, but the city did not do so, the ABC daily reports.
No doubt the Spainish version of the Mail denounced the idea as health and safety gone mad
As for IS attacking Barcelona I did notice this.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/no ... -apartheidrcelona city council passed a historic declaration on Wednesday upholding the right to boycott Israel over its violations of Palestinian rights.
The motion condemns Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, calls for the immediate end to the decade-long Gaza blockade and ensures that the city’s public procurement policies exclude companies that profit from Israel’s human rights abuses.
It also admonishes Israel for its intransigence in the face of repeated warnings from the international community to stop its illegal colonization of Palestinian land, according to the Catalan daily Ara.
The council recognizes “nonviolent campaigns promoted by Palestinian and international civil society for defending international and human rights law in Palestine” – a clear nod to the BDS movement.
The city joins dozens of Spanish municipalities which have declared themselves “free of Israeli apartheid.”
A coalition of Spanish and Catalan boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) groups welcomed the vote.
“We celebrate this victory because we believe it to be a great step forward in raising the awareness of the role of local government in the defense of human rights and in breaking the complicity that inherently bolsters apartheid and the occupation of Palestine,” the groups state.
“This resolution is an institutional recognition of civil society demands for an end to complicity in violations of international law through nonviolent struggle, as practiced by the BDS movement,” the groups add.
The city’s recognition of the right to engage in Israel boycott activism, at a time when more European governments move to protect such activism, “is a triumph for free speech and democratic rights in Europe,” said Rafeef Ziadah of the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
“It gives further recognition to BDS as an inclusive, inspiring, anti-racist movement rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that upholds the basic principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity,” Ziadah added.