The Public Prosecutor's Office of the National Audience has presented a complaint to the central court of instruction for an alleged crime of sedition related to the demonstrations and protests in Barcelona on Wednesday and Thursday against the large-scale operation by the Civil Guard against the 1st October referendum. The complaint isn't against any specific individual, but does mention the leaders of the pro-independence organisations that played a role in leading some of the rallies, Jordi Sànchez of the ANC (Catalan National Assembly) and Jordi Cuixart of Òmnium Cultural.
The crime of sedition carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison for those who rise up "publicly and tumultuously" to "prevent, with force or outside of legal paths, the application of the laws".
The public prosecutor reports that, during the Civil Guard's operation at the Catalan Economy ministry on Wednesday, during which a number of department officials were arrested, "a crowd gathered in front of the buildings being searched with the aim of preventing by force the agents of the authority from legitimately exercising their functions and the fulfilment of the judicial resolutions".
The complaint says that "volunteers of the ANC" made a cordon in front of the door to the department "to avoid the Civil Guard taking away the detainees", something which caused "very tense situations". It adds that the president of the ANC, Jordi Sànchez, said to the 40,000 protesters that "on 1st October we will vote. If they take away our ballots boxes, we will build them". "Nobody should go home, it will be a long, intense night."
It's also claimed that at 7am, two Civil Guard agents tried to leave the building via the neighbouring Cinema Coliseum "but the demonstrators congregated at the doors of the theatre and prevented them from using it as an evacuation route". The court of instruction number 13 of Barcelona got in contact with the head of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), Josep Lluís Trapero, to send a security unit to allow the judicial commission, made up of agents and a lawyer, to leave the building. In the end they had to leave the building by its flat roof "because the demonstrators prevented them leaving by the door".
It also names the president of Òmnium Cultural, Jordi Cuixart who, alongside Jordi Sànchez, climbed on top of a Civil Guard vehicle to call for "a permanent demonstration". Meanwhile, adds the complaint, "three official vehicles of the Civil Guard were attacked by the crowd, forcing the agents to take refuge inside the building".
After an intervention by the Mossos, five plain clothes officers could leave escorted by the Catalan police, at 3.20am, but they couldn't use the official vehicles because they'd been damaged. The rest left the building at 7am.
The complaint likewise lists incidents at the Governance ministry, the headquarters of CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy), the search of the printing house in Bigues i Riells where they found almost 10 million voting slips and in Sabadell.
Small-scale rebellion
Because of this, the Public Prosecutor believes that all these events constitute a crime of sedition "collective and tumultuous uprising" or a "small-scale rebellion", says the statement, which mentions articles starting at 544 of the Penal Code which defines sedition. According to the Public Prosecutor, "the ultimate aim of these mobilisations is to achieve the holding of the referendum to achieve the proclamation of a Catalan republic, independent from Spain, being aware that they're carrying out an act on the edges of the legal paths, preventing the application of the legal system as a whole and, in particular, of the fundamental law of all Spaniards, the Constitution".
Because of that, they ask for proceedings to be opened to investigate the reported facts and to try to "discover those possibly responsible".
The full complaint in Spanish: