ASIA TIMES : Eye on Catalonia, South Thailand yearns to vote

http://www.atimes.com/article/eye-catalonia-south-thailand-yearns-vote/

Malay Muslim activists in the insurgency-prone region have called for a referendum on 'rights to self-determination', a rally cry military authorities have curbed and silenced

By DON PATHAN YALA, OCTOBER 31, 2017 3:48 PM (UTC+8)

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An artist takes part in a graffiti event as part of the Saiburi Street Xhibit in Pattani - one of Thailand's southernmost Muslim majority provinces hit by a deadly insurgency - on February 28, 2016. Photo: AFP/Madree Tohlala

Spain may be halfway around the world from Thailand, but that hasn’t stopped ethnic Malay political activists in the Southeast Asian nation’s Muslim-majority southernmost region from tuning in to developments in Catalonia, where a vote for independence has been met with a swift and firm counter-response from Madrid.

Political activists here have observed the political crisis in Spain with curiosity, wondering how the Catalan population developed their political platform, strengthened their movement’s grass roots legitimacy and ultimately through democratic means challenged the Spanish government’s notion of undivided national sovereignty

http://www.atimes.com/article/eye-catalonia-south-thailand-yearns-vote/