Abstract

The paper – based on a qualitative study carried on between 2017 and 2022, which includes document analysis, semi-structured interviews and participant observation – analyzes the criminalization of the Catalan independentist movement, in the broader context of contemporary processes of criminalization of political dissent and freedom of expression. The focus is on the wave of repression and on the strategies of criminalization employed by the Spanish police and judiciary in the years after the referendum of October 1st, 2017. The study shows how this process of criminalization shares some common traits with other processes and, at the same time, which are the peculiarities related to the Spanish context, in terms of punitive strategies and of the type of mobilization.