I know it is completely off-topic AND I know I will be down-voted to death, but it is indeed absolutely shameful what happened in Spain. And we cannot tolerate this in the European Union.

Also the European Court of Justice (ECJ) agrees that separatist politicians should not be jailed for their opinions as elected officials: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50808766

More info: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/14/spain-...

> Also the European Court of Justice (ECJ) agrees that separatist politicians should not be jailed for their opinions as elected officials: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50808766

That's not at all what they said. According to the ECJ, they should have had temporary immunity just for the purpose of taking up their seats as MEPs even though they were on trial for a generic crime. That ruling doesn't have any judgement regarding the legality of separatism, and also wouldn't free them of prison time if found guilty by the Spanish court.

A bit of context would surely help to put this comment into perspective.

The catalonian government, which is an autonomous community of Spain, held a referendum to secede. The Spanish shut down polling stations, but they declared independence anyways, so the central government implemented direct rule and arrested the separatist politicians responsible for it.

So what you're saying is, when I post that Catalonia should be free and go on holiday in Spain, no spooks would follow me around, and no pressure would be put on German companies to fire me, and this isn't even remotely comparable.

7 elected politicians and 2 leaders of the independence movement have been arrested and convicted for the ‘crime’ of holding a referendum. Up to 13 years in prison.

Yes, I know, that's still shifting goal posts from

> "being put in jail because you say publicly that tibet should be free"

and if merely pointing that fact out is getting me downvoted, that's the problem of the people who are doing that.

They spent public money on the referendum, didn't they? If the subordinate government could do whatever they wanted, they wouldn't need a referendum, would they.

They jailed Catalan politicians and activists after winning a referendum for the independence of Catalonia: https://catalansalmon.com/campanyes/llibertat/?cvid=2

From what I was able to get from talking to people from Barcelona, anti-independence citizens were viewing the referendum as illegal and didn't attend. So it's no wonder that the separatists "won" the referendum, but it's legitimacy is rather questionable.

For the uninitiated...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_movement

The ship sailed long ago on the EU being anything but corrupt at this point for me when they continuously flirted the idea of Turkey being invited in, extend protected statuses in trade arrangements, and do nothing to help their actual members, like Greece, against the war games and provocations that occur on an almost weekly basis in the Aegean. Once again, it's all in the name of the oil.

The world is grey, not black and white.

These are collectives of politicians, who have a huge number of difficult problems to solve and limited means of solving them. They have conflicting, national, local and, yes, some personal demands. A mass of conflicting ideology, with varying levels of diligence, ethics and greed.

Expecting absolute morals is expecting the impossible.

Compared to virtually any government in history, and most governments today, the EU is far, far from corrupt. Yes there is corruption. But no government has no corruption.

And it's certainly not helpful, or thruthful, to use silly rhetoric like 'The ship sailed long ago on the EU being anything but corrupt'.

That is a lie, and I can only hope you are adult enough to admit it is one.