The point is there is no country that includes a right to secede in their constitution. The central government doesn't have to allow a referendum if it doesn't want to.
And to say that the government officials have been arrested without charges is bullshit. Organising the referendum is clearly overstepping their competencies, hence spending public money on it is illegal. That is the problem here. This not repression.
Sure, they don't have to, but my argument wasn't about whether they have to, but rather whether it's simply the better option. That argument is independent (hah!) of whether you agree with the independence movement. I personally really don't know what's better; on the one hand, I'm a proponent of a Europe of regions, meaning I'm somewhat sympathetic with independence. On the other hand, I still want a
united Europe of regions, and I'm not sure a balkanization is the right way to get to that goal.
Anyway, the reactions to Spain's action alone show that what they did probably wasn't the best option.
France actually crushed linguistic minoritites after the French Revolutin, up to the early 20th Century.
You go to Corsica and tell people they're a rightful part of France and if you come back I'll concede your point.
What I meant is an independence movement this strong and, well, ready to act. I totally agree that Spain is at least more lenient than France, but that also means France doesn't have to deal with an independence movement that strong.
One could argue that therefore, more repression is better to prevent ugly scenes like in Catalonia right now, but I really don't agree with that.
So yeah, point taken, France is "just" better at repressing independence movements, which isn't really a point I wanted to support.
Less because of that, more because central governments don't like separatist movements generally and prefer to suppress them where possible. The right to self-determination is generally used to defend annexations or to defend against such.
There isn't really much presiding over international law anyway besides different sovereign states that can choose to take what stance they like and do so for diplomatic reasons. I can't see anyone siding against Spain for example even if Catalans voted to leave.
Sure, that too, but I don't think that's all of it. The right of self-determination was created at a time when nations were a lot more homogeneous. With more heteorogeneous societies, it's much harder to determine what that right comprises, at least in my opinion. Especially w.r.t. minorities in a not-yet-country willing to separate.