Yesterday, in Spain it was the Day of Thinking, the one before the national elections, set for today (Sunday, March 14th).

Victims

• Alcalá de Henares celebrated a public and populated religious service. It is one of the most affected towns in number of deaths (around 30).
  
• A police shot a man in Pamplona, after a heavy discussion about the terrorist attack.
  

Investigation

• In the morning, the minister Ángel Acebes continued blaming ETA as the prime supspect, but no new evidence was given.
  
• Some radio stations claimed that Spanish Intelligence Service was 90% sure on this later hypotesis. The Director of the Service denied it.
  
• After flash mobs begun to form, in the evening, the Minister informed that police arrested 5 people in the afternoon: three for Marocco and two from India.
  
• The arrests were linked to the cell phone and the manipulated SIM card encountered last Thursday in a bomb bagback.
  
• Later in the midnight, the minister informed that Telemadrid received a call from an arab person, informing the existence of a videotape in a public trash basket. The videotape shows a man talking in arab and claiming the attacks for Al Qaida. It is not confirmed.

Flashmobs

• During the day, text messages flowed all around the country between cell phones to concentrate people in front of the ruling party (Partido Popular, PP) headquarters. The messages contained messages asking for answers.
  
• The mobs concentrated thousands of people.
  
• PP candidate accused opposition (Partido Socialista, PSOE) for organizing the flash mobs.
  
• PSOE denied it and answered they knew ETA was being ruled out while PP still was blaming ETA, but didn't say nothing. It accused PP of hiding information.
  
• The Minister of Presidency later accused PSOE of manipulating people in the Day of Thinking.
  
• Election Board ruled illegal the flash mobs.

Political remarks

• If it was ETA vasque terrorist group, voters will favour PP, because PSOE is ruling in Catalonia along an independentist party, whose leader recently had a secret meeting with ETA in France. Later, ETA announced they won't attack in Catalonia, but denied it was because of the meeting.
  
• If it was an islamic terrorist group, voters will favour PSOE, because the goverment supported Bush in Irak war, against the feelings of 90% of the population. PSOE's candidate promised the retrait of spanish troops in Irak if the country is not under UN ruling.

International support
As a Spaniard, I want to thank all the international support. Thanks.

1 comments

2004-03-13 22:21