The march in Barcelona will start at the Estació de França at 4pm and will end at the Arc de Triomf with a rally that will start at 5:15pm. There will also be decentralized mobilizations.
Assemblea, Òmnium Cultural, the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), the Council of the Republic, trade union Intersindical and minority rights organization CIEMEN call on civil society to make the next Diada –Catalonia’s National Day– a great national demonstration under the slogan: ‘Let’s take to the streets again: Independence. Justice, country, future.’
This morning, the presidents and spokespersons of the six organizations have outlined the design of the 2024 Diada, to showcase the common front that is wiling and ready to lead this new cycle towards independence, from the transversal and plural nature of the self-determination movement. For this reason, organizations from the sphere of civil society, including human rights defenders, trade unions, municipalities, culture, cooperative and politics will take part in the September 11 demonstration.
In this sense, both Assemblea’s president Lluís Llach and Òmnium’s president Xavier Antich consider that this upcoming September 11 must exemplify the unity of Catalonia’s pro-independence movement. “We wanted to organize this September 11 with the main Catalan pro-independence organizations. We will do it together and without giving up on anything”, explained Llach. “We must all be there. Independence is the only future project for a politically and socially fairer country. Let’s go back to the streets with determination and unity”, he insisted.
Xavier Antich called to turn the Diada into a “great demonstration of the country”. “Let’s make a common front to once again prove that the pro-independence movement is strong, transversal, intelligent and strategically mature”, he said, and warned: “The polls warn us that there are more and more disenchanted and disappointed independentists, but the streets can’t count out a single one because this is precisely where our main strength lies”.
From the municipal world, AMI president Jordi Gaseni called on the local world to take to the streets to show that the goal continues intact in the cities and towns: “We are taking to the streets to claim the sovereignty that we need, which is all of it. It’s that of a country that has everything to gain. We call on the local world to come out this Diada to show that our goal remains the same”.
Teresa Vallverdú, a member of the governing body of the Council of the Republic, urged to remain “united” and to be “generous” in this demonstration: “The internationalization of the Catalan cause is still an essential front to achieve our goals. We can only dignify the Catalan nation if we return to the streets and if we don’t forget our goal of national liberation, even if this means forgetting our differences”.
Intersindical-CSC’s Ester Rocabayera recalled that national freedom also means “to be able to decide the framework of labour relations” that responds to reality, the economic context and one’s needs. For this reason, she urged everyone to join the demonstration to “say very loudly that we need a productive model for people that is socially useful, with a sustainable industry and decent wages, to be able to have a strong social protection system for everyone”.
CIEMEN’s president David Minoves finally added that it is necessary to mobilize to defend “a cohesive country that defends its diversity and national identity, built upon the inclusion of all those who have arrived in recent years, one that arrests hate speech and segregation of welfare”. Likewise, he defended the collective rights of the Catalan people “ensuing from international solidarity”.
A decentralized mobilization with Barcelona as its epicentre
This year, the mobilization will be decentralized and will take place simultaneously in several cities. In Barcelona, the march will start at 4pm at the Estació de França train station, and will conclude at the Arc de Triomf, where the unitarian political rally will start at 17:14 – evoking the year of the fall of Barcelona. At the same time, there will also be demonstrations in Tarragona, Girona, Lleida and Tortosa. Each location will report the negative consequences of being part of Spain.
“Making a decentralized mobilization will help us to reactivate the whole country. There must be a lot of people everywhere. Being subject to the Kingdom of Spain is a structural threat to the survival of the Catalan language and culture, and to the economic future of Catalonia”, assured the coordinator of the Assemblea Mobilization Commission, Elisenda Romeu. “From each of the five points, we will report the grievances that we suffer through belonging to Spain, closely linked to fiscal plunder”, she explained.
