The Catalan government “is in total agreement with the free exercise of ideas and democratic freedoms, and consequently, on the side of all public servants and elected positions that carry out their functions and freedoms in a democratic manner,” said minister Neus Munté after the mayor of Berga, Montserrat Venturós, refused to testify before the Audiencia Nacional high court to answer charges related to her refusal to remove the lone-star Catalan independence flag hanging over the town hall during the election.
Munté said that “the debate is not about the mayor of Berga’s decision not to testify before the Audiencia Nacional, but rather that in Catalonia there is a criminalisation and persecution of action within a framework of free expression and the exchange of ideas, and that has been going on for too long,” warned the minister and Catalan government spokeswoman.
At the same time, the minister insisted that there must be a separation between the political actions of the government and the Catalan parliament or local authorities, “and the work of public servants, in such a way as to generate complete legal security in relation to the carrying out of their functions,” especially, she stressed, given “the process we are experiencing and the development of a road map.”
