dictatorship

During the Spanish Civil War, from 1936 to 1939, Franco’s rebels received military help from Italy among other countries. The Italian Legionary Air Force, based in Mallorca, was responsible for the aerial bombardment of the city of Barcelona from 16th March to 18th 1938, exactly 75 years ago. For three days, Italian aviation forces bombed civil targets and neighbourhoods and caused the death of approximately a thousand civilians. The bombing of the Catalan capital was one of the most lethal bombing missions of the Spanish Civil War. Barcelona High Court has ordered a full investigation on crimes against humanity.

Raimon is one of the most important artists in the Catalan language, and is part of the group of singer-songwriters of the ‘Nova Cançó’. Raimon’s protest songs became true popular anthems against Franco’s dictatorship, with titles such as ‘Al vent’, ‘Jo vinc d’un silenci’ and ‘D'un temps d'un país’. His songs and concerts were often censored. With a style combining simple musical guitar arrangements with literary and direct texts, influenced by the French Chanson, Raimon highlighted the value of the Catalan language, as it was being persecuted. Born in Xàtiva, in Valencia, he has also defended the unity of the Catalan language. The exhibition shows a wide range of documents from the artist’s personal archives. It is complemented with films, conferences and a concert at the Liceu theatre.

Alejandro Cao, born in Catalonia, is the Chairman of the Korean Friendship Association, part of the hermetic regime’s body promoting North Korea’s image abroad. Cao is one of the few North Korean top officials who travel abroad and talk to the press. The sudden death of Kim Jong-il found this “special representative” of North Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry in Catalonia, visiting relatives. He shared his views on the regime’s future leadership with CNA.

Heribert Barrera, who became the first president of the reinstituted Catalan Parliament after Franco, died last Saturday aged 94 years old. He was the oldest leader of Catalan independence movement and a respected figure within the entire political spectrum. The farewell ceremony took place this Monday at the Catalan Parliament.

The final 365 boxes of the controversial civil-war archives were returned on Wednesday, ending a 5 year process to reinstate them in Catalonia. However several artefacts still remain in Salamanca.

More than 30 years after the end of the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco, some towns have yet to remove the symbols that celebrated the victory of the general back in 1939. In Tortosa, the council is following procedures to change the name of a neighbourhood that refers to the day that the fascists conquered the town.

Photojournalist Gervasio Sánchez culminates a decade of his work with a new exhibition called ‘Disappeared’. He has pictured the pain of family members who face the loss of a relative disappeared by a dictatorial regime. The work is shown simultaneously in Barcelona, Madrid and León.

Marta Casals asks the Spanish Government to ask the UN to recuperate the anthem that 40 years ago Pau Casals especially composed. The anthem was used in the seventies, under U Thant’s term, and then forgot. The famous cellist wrote a song for peace.

Demonstrators carried signs that said “Free Egypt” or “Up with Egypt, down with Mubarak”. All their claims demanded the President’s immediate resignation.

The Mayor of Barcelona calls the removal of the Franco sculpture 'an act of democratic normality'

The Babylon Cinema of Berlin will screen 11 Catalan films produced during the Franco regime as part of their series of ‘radical, transgressive and underground’ films.

Amnesty International has released information suggesting that over 114,000 families from the Spanish state still have no solution to the disappearance of their loved ones as a result of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. They have asked the Government to take responsibility on this “gross violation of human rights”.

Catalan vice-president, Josep Lluís Carod Rovira, asks the Spanish Government to avoid obstacles and to join Catalonia in honouring president Lluís Companys by declaring the trial that condemned him to death null and void

A commemorative plaque is to honour Lluís Companys in the French town of La Baule in Brittany, where he was arrested on 13 August 1940, exactly 70 years ago.

The Catalan Observatory of the London School of Economics hosts a joint conference with the Memorial Democràtic de Catalunya (Democracy Fighters? Memorial) about the victims of the civil war and the Franco dictatorship.