Mondiacult 2025 | Spanish language is persecuted by catalans politicians

Barcelona (Catalonia) Spanish Kingdom, september 25, 2025 (Lasvocesdelpueblo).- Mondiacult 2025 | A group of Catalans protest outside the Mondiacult against discrimination against the Spanish language in Catalonia. Protesters held signs with messages against discrimination in the Spanish language in Catalonia and read a manifesto in spanish and english during the first day of the UNESCO international conference (Mondiacult 2025), bringing together the world's ministers of culture: "Spanish language is persecuted by catalans politcians"; "Spanish is culture too"; "la cultura no es censura"; "sentences are carried out, they are not hidden"; "la lengua une, Salvador Illa Roca divide"; "lenguage should unites, not divide"; "stop discrimination against spanish speakers"; "No policy to silence Spanish"; "Enough of imposition, we want choice".

MANIFESTO

Open Letter to the Organizing Committee of the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development (MONDIACULT 2025) in Barcelona and to all attending Ministers of Culture

The systematic exclusion of Spanish as an official language in the public sphere and as a vehicular language in the educational system of Catalonia, with the resulting negative impact on cultural diversity, academic performance, and social cohesion in the Catalan region, has led us to denounce this situation before UNESCO on the occasion of the MONDIACULT 2025 Conference in Barcelona.

First of all, we would like to express our satisfaction that MONDIACULT 2025, the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, is taking place in such a vibrant and plural city as Barcelona. On the occasion of this conference, dedicated to promoting culture as a global public good, the undersigned entities wish to bring to your attention the situation of linguistic and cultural discrimination existing in Catalonia.

The purpose of this communication is to highlight the profound contradiction we observe in the context in which the conference is held. While MONDIACULT promotes cultural diversity and multilingualism as pillars for peace and development, in Catalonia, the host region, we live a systematic exclusion of one of its official languages, Spanish, as a language of instruction in the educational system and of normal use in public administration.

Spanish, the mother tongue of more than half of Catalonia's population and official throughout Spain, is spoken by nearly 600 million people worldwide and represents a first -rate cultural heritage. Despite this, the so-called "linguistic immersion" model, mandatory in Catalonia, relegates Spanish to a mere subject, preventing thousands of children and young people from being educated in their mother tongue. This situation is unique in the world —no country excludes the official language of the State from public administration and education— is the reason why more than half of the population feels like foreigners in their own country. This contributes to academic failure, as demonstrated by international studies and comparative studies with the rest of Spain. It also causes Catalan schoolchildren to only have adequate competence in the regional Catalan language, which is not useful as a communication tool outside the region. This leads to a considerable loss of professional opportunities and social mobility for the most disadvantaged sectors, as social and political elites systematically send their children to private schools that do not apply the so-called "linguistic immersion." These non-immersive schools are beyond the reach of the vast majority of the population.

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