The Spanish Civil Guard has this afternoon come to the office of El Nacional to notify the newspaper of the order of the Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia that they must not publish adverts relating to the independence referendum planned for 1st October.
Two plainclothes agents delivered the notification to the management of the newspaper, who signed that they had received it. The members of the armed gendarmerie were in the offices for about a quarter of an hour. The note is pictured and translated below. It orders to "abstain from [publishing]... any propaganda or publicity relating to the referendum" warning that "doing so could incur criminal responsibilities".
The notice was written by Mercedes Armas, a judge of the Supreme Court of Catalonia, who is instructing in the complaints presented by the Public Prosecutor against members of the Catalan government following the Catalan Parliament's approval of the laws of the Referendum and Transitional Jurisprudence. The laws were appealed by the Spanish government and suspended by the Constitutional Court. At least four other private Catalan companies have so far received the same order: El Punt Avui, Vilaweb, Racó Català, and Nació Digital.
This Thursday, the judge ordered the Civil Guard to provide her with a list of all media that had published or broadcast the announcement of the Catalan government's campaign on the referendum. She asked for all such companies to be identified, apart from Catalan public broadcaster TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, who had already been notified.
The notification from the Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia reads:
In virtue of that agreed by the instructing judge in the proceedings mentioned above, with this notice, the editor, or whoever substitutes for them or represents them, is required to abstain from including in their media propaganda or publicity relating to the 1st October referendum, in any way.
Warning that doing so could incur criminal responsibilities.
Two plainclothes agents are delivering the order from judge Mercedes Armas to remove the advertisement. The visits come after yesterday the judge asked the Civil Guard to produce a list of media outlets that had published or broadcast it to inform them that they couldn't continue with such publications relating to a referendum banned by Spain's Constitutional Court.