Spain's Crackdown on Catalonia Includes Internet Censorship (internetsociety.org)

Spain's autonomous Catalonia region wants to hold a referendum on independence next weekend. Spain's Constitutional Court insists that that vote is illegal, and has taken control of Catalonia's police force to try to stop the vote. They're deploying thousands of additional police officers and have seized nearly 10 million ballots. And now the Internet Society has gotten involved, according to an announcement shared by Slashdot reader valinor89: Measures restricting free and open access to the Internet related to the independence referendum have been reported in Catalonia. There have been reports that major telecom operators have been asked to monitor and block traffic to political websites, and following a court order, law enforcement has raided the offices of the .cat registry in Barcelona, examining a computer and arresting staff.

We are concerned by reports that this court order would require a top-level domain (TLD) operator such as .cat to begin to block "all domains that may contain any kind of information about the referendum."

Comments

Re:Well that is one way of ensuring a loss

[marcansoft]

The vote was already illegitimate; this is just going to slant it further. They already tried a non-binding "referendum" in 2014 with predictable results: 80% pro-independence (even though fair polls show more like 40%). The only way to have a fair referendum is to do it in a way that is approved and legal; the moment it becomes dodgy in any way, it severely biases the results because of course participation is going to be severely skewed towards people who want to vote yes.

This is why the central government only really has two choices: they can either support a completely legitimate referendum (whether this can actually be done legally or not based on the Constitution is unclear), or they can wholly suppress attempts. They can't allow an illegitimate referendum to go through because the result is going to be obvious and not representative of the citizens' will. The pro-independence regional government has stated they intend to declare independence within 48 hours after a "yes" victory; this would be ridiculous in this case given that result would in no way be accurate with the current circumstances surrounding the referendum.

(Note: I don't approve of the censorship part, just trying to explain what is going on.)

Re:Hey Quebec,

[dryeo]

Since the last referendum, the federal government has passed the clarity act. Has to be a clear super majority rather then 50%+1. Quebec leaving also means amending the Constitution, with an amendment that requires 100% of the Provinces agreeing. There also will need to be a discussion of how much territory Quebec can keep. What they entered Confederation with? Or what the Feds bought from the Hudson's Bay Company. Of course the natives won't want to go either and they're a Federal responsibility.
Quebec leaving is not as simple as the separatists have preached.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...