Speaking today at Stanford University (San Francisco) the president of the Government of Catalonia said, “In a Spain in full democratic regression, the struggle for the Catalan Republic is the only way to get back our civil rights and our democracy.” The head of the Catalan government gave a lecture entitled “Civil Rights and Self-Determination: A Catalan Perspective” at the Stanford Humanities Center, at the invitation of Professor Clayborne Carson, founder and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. “The exercise of our right of self-determination and the defence of civil rights is precisely the path we are pursuing,” Torra said. According to the Catalan president, “Human rights are not negotiable. The rights that help our societies advance cannot be suspended.”