The parliamentary group of En Comú Podem has registered this Tuesday a bill in Parliament in which they propose a ban on rubber and foam bullets in Catalonia, a bill that seeks to abound in the contradictions between ERC and Junts, which in Congress vetoed -together with Bildu- the reform of the gag law, among other things, because it did not include the prohibition of these projectiles.
“Catalonia has the powers to do so”, the spokesperson for the commons has argued in a press conference from Parliament, to elaborate on the contradiction between Republicans and post-convergents, noting that “we are consistent with what was proposed in the Congress of the Deputies” by these two groups.
The use of rubber and foam bullets by security forces and bodies has always been the subject of debate in Parliament. Rubber bullets have been banned in Catalonia since 2014 by mandate of the Catalan Chamber, but the ban only concerns the Mossos d’Esquadra because the National Police and the Civil Guard can use them in Catalan territory. On the other hand, foam bullets -polyurethane viscoelastic foam that does not rebound- can be used in Catalonia, also by the Mossos, but their use requires a strict protocol that requires accounting for traceability in each case.
The contradictions that the common people notice in this matter are double. To begin with, because in the commission on the police model that finished its work at the end of the year, Junts and ERC did not support the ban on foam bullets. On the committee’s final ballots, the Post-Convergents voted against and the Republicans abstained. However, both groups have called for a ban on rubber bullets in Spain through gag law reform.
“We invite the parties that used this issue to vote against the reform of the gag law, to cosign this bill,” Cid has summoned, who has elaborated on the arguments given by the ERC and Junts spokespersons in Congress , Gabriel Rufián and Miriam Nogueras, in order not to support the reform of the gag law. “They said that the 36 agreements that were around the reform of the law would not move forward because there was no agreement on this. If ERC and Junts want to ban these projectiles in Congress, it is evident that we can do it here”, he remarked, otherwise, for the commons it would be demonstrated that the attitude of both formations in Madrid obeys “electoralism”.
