Autodeterminación y represión política en Catalunya

The referendum of October 1st, 2017 on self-determination in Catalonia was called by the Catalan government, but it was possible thanks to the popular organization. A judicial ban and the police violence and brutality were the State’s response to the call. This political repression would be followed by the opening of several legal cases, the most important of them is known as the “trial of the process”, which would end with accusations of very serious crimes, with imprisonment and with political exile on the part of the Catalan government and social leaders. In this article we analyze the “frames of reference” and the “repertoires of action” of the collective action of the voters of October 1st. We use these same constructs to analyze the political and judicial responseof the Spanish State. This analysis allows us to discover that the political conflict around the events of October 1st, is the expression of a transitional confrontational divide between a social bloc that defends conservative, authoritarian and ultra-nationalist values with another social bloc that wants to expand the democratizing limits and, therefore, rights and freedoms. We also note that the political repression of the State has functioned as a factor that increases meanings and imaginations linked to the need to broaden and deepen democracy, at the same time, it has shown that the principles of authority and Spain’s indissoluble unity are deeply rooted.