Thursday 24 January 2008

How Safe is Barcelona?

It seems that international media has already lost interest in the raids against terrorist suspects carried out in Raval, Barcelona, last weekend. Here, the security situation is developing into a scandal. Yesterday, we heard the Councillor of Internal Affairs, Saura, say that there did not exist any imminent threats to Catalonia. Only a few hours later, did the police inform us that the original plan of the arrested foreigners had been to carry out suicide attacks on the Barcelona metro system during last weekend.

So, either Saura was trying to cover up an inconvenient story or he was not on top of a major issue under his responsibility – two alternatives equally easy to condemn. For a change, not only the opposition parties are up in arms. Ordinary people commenting on related news articles might differ in opinion but coincide being worried and concerned.

In the meantime, the Catalan government maintains its silence and the Spanish Minister of Internal Affairs reassures us that the terrorists were only training. Now, that feels much better.

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