The insults and threats with which pro-independence organizations such as Arran, the youth branch of the CUP, have for years coerced students and professors at Catalan universities have jumped into the Cloister of the University of Barcelona (UB). "Fascist, colonist!" Are the verbal spitting he received on July 20 from a colleague

Ricardo García Manrique

at the UB Cloister. The first with

Joan Guàrdia

as rector, after he prevailed in December in the elections with a candidacy sponsored by the separatist entity ANC.

The reason for the attack received in the course of the Cloister, with the presence of 180 academics, is -according to García in his Facebook account- that in his day he unsuccessfully opposed the debate on a manifesto in support of the pro-independence leaders prosecuted for the coup to the constitutional order of October 2017. "For this I invoked the duty of ideological neutrality of the universities," says the professor, who once the manifesto was approved and debated decided to challenge it with other professors before the courts, which ended them giving the reason. The Contentious-Administrative Court 3 of Barcelona condemned the UB at the end of 2020 for violating the fundamental rights to ideological freedom and freedom of expression of its teachers and students.

Something that some separatist professors seem not to have forgotten. Among them was a member of the Department of Art History who, according to García Manrique, called him a "fascist and a colonist" before the passive endorsement of the new rector of the UB. "Calling someone a colonist in Catalonia simply implies trying to exclude him from the community, alluding to his origins. If not, it is very similar to a xenophobic and racist insult," says García Márquez, who regrets that Rector

Guàrdia

, who he presided over its first cloister, did not protect him against his protest and asked for the withdrawal of the insults. Quite the contrary, he limited himself to remembering that freedom of expression prevails in the Cloister as long as the rules of academic courtesy are respected.

As García Manrique was negatively surprised that "none of the 180 attendees" asked to speak to demand, at least, a certain correction and that a colleague not be insulted in the Cloister.

"More than the energuménic invectives themselves, this was what hurt me the most," he admits.

His testimony has aroused, on the other hand, reactions of support and solidarity from constitutional entities such as Societat Civil Catalana and S'ha Acabat, as well as from other university professors, such as

Isabel Fernández Alonso

, tenured professor of communication at the UAB, and

Chantal Moll

, professor of civil law at the UB, who has denounced the breach of the "ethical code" of the University in the Claustro

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