Separatist political party ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia) yesterday sued Cope Radio and one of the network's commentators, Federico Jimenez Losantos, also editor of the Spain Herald and Libertad Digital, charging repeated slander of the party and its leaders. PP secretary general Angel Acebes yesterday called the suit part of "a strategy of harassment and threats against freedom of expression." One of the plaintiffs, Joan Puigcercos, ERC's secretary general, is the same person who defended the "sensibility" of the members of his party's youth group who chained themselves to the front of the Cope Radio building.

Another plaintiff, ERC president Josep Lluis Carod-Rovira, also justified the attack on Cope headquarters, calling it a "protest against reiterated lies and insults." ERC accused Cope Radio of "insulting" its leaders, while one of its leaders, Joan Llado, said yesterday that Cope Radio "is playing a similar role to the Rwandan radio network Mille Colines," convicted by an international court of instigating the Hutus to murder 800,000 Tutsis.

ERC filed the suit last Friday, though it did not become public until yesterday. The plaintiffs are the party itself, its president, Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, and its secretary general, Joan Puigcercos. An ERC spokeswoman said the party "for the moment" was ruling out criminal libel charges, "because the penal route is more complicated and difficult way to achieve our primary goal, which is the end of the insults and verbal attacks and the acknowledgement that they occurred."

The lawsuit demands that explicit admission, as well as the demand that Cope Radio and Jimenez Losantos "cease their attitude and do not again incur in such behavior," and €60,000 in damages. It also demands that Cope Radio not only be forced to announce the sentence, but publish it in written media outlets through "adversing paid by the network."

According to ERC, "The lawsuit was filed discreetly and without making noise because we don't want the things Cope Radio says to mark our political agenda, or center the debate of Catalan political leaders. That is, we want justice to act and do its job while we keep doing ours, and we want to prevent them from insulting us and lying with total impunity in the name of a false freedom of expression or of information."

The lawsuit includes a document with transcriptions of statements by Jimenez Losantos and broadcast by Cope Radio during 2005. On June 15, Jimenez Losantos said, "Who defends us from these guys. They are not just bullies, some of them are murderers. How many unrepentant terrorists are there today at the head of ERC? And, of course, I personally understand Carod-Rovira's threats to be threats from ETA, and I interpret them as such." Another statement, from November 18, is the following: "Puigcercos, who was the political boss of Terra Lluire, that is the Otegi of the period...I don't know if they're reconstructing another Madrid cell."

PP secretary general Angel Acebes yesterday blamed the lawsuit "both on those who are whipping it up and those who are not doing what they should to prevent it." Acebes said it was "serious" that neither the PSOE nor its partners in the Catalan Tripartite "has condemned the threats that are reiterated permanently, or come out in the defense of freedom of expression. When those who are most responsible for condemning these activities do not place any limits, it produces the contrary effect to what democracy should produce."

Meanwhile, under the slogan "Enough Spanish-ism," ERC's youth group called on followers to participate in several demonstrations against Spain's Constitution, to be celebrated with a public holiday today on its 27th anniversary, calling the demos both "anticonstitutional" and "unconstitutional." One of the calls to demonstrate says, "Come tear out a page of the Spanish Constitution." The poster includes photographs of Eduardo Zaplana, King Juan Carlos, Jose Bono, and Cope Radio's logo.