As the presidential elections of 20 May draw nearer, our country is entering a new, uncertain period. The deep economic depression, hyperinflation, the generalized collapse of public services, and as a consequence, the rise in the workers’ and popular struggles, frame the explosive national political context.

The Catalan Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CRDs) have come under a sustained campaign of criminalisation. The state prosecutor, the mass media and the political parties of the Spanish regime have all ganged up to brand them as “violent”, demanding that “action should be taken” against them and threatening them with prosecution for “rebellion”. Why are they so afraid of the CDRs?