The Dominican nun, who in 2017 described the 20-S raids as a "coup d'état", receives the Police Merit Medal with White Distinction for her humanitarian work with Ukrainian minors.
The National Police has included Sister Lucía Caram among the personalities awarded this year with the Police Merit Medal with White Distinction, a recognition granted to individuals outside the force on the occasion of the Feast of the Guardian Angels. The distinction, authorised by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, comes after the nun has focused her activities in recent years on humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as confirmed by El Confidencial.
Caram, an Argentine Dominican settled in Catalonia for decades, has become a media figure due to her television appearances and her stance during the independence process. However, the decoration is in response to her current work: this year she has collaborated with the National Police in bringing 55 Ukrainian children, children of deceased agents, those mobilised at the front, or missing in the war, to Spain.
The minors, some as young as six years old, spent a few days in La Seu d'Urgell (Lleida) as part of a temporary hosting programme. Caram herself has explained that she accepts the medal because it helps to give visibility to these solidarity projects with Ukraine.
The nun claims that for the past five years she has lived "removed from political matters". She acknowledges that she supported the independence referendum in 2017, but believes that the label of 'independentist nun' is just that, a label. In that context, on September 20, 2017, she posted a message on the social network X in which she described the police operation ordered by the Investigating Court number 13 of Barcelona against the organisation of the referendum as a "coup d'état".
"This is a coup d'état, an attack on democracy, a violation of human rights. In the face of arrogance: calm and serenity"
On that day, thousands of people gathered outside the Vice Presidency, Economy and Finance Department, then led by Oriol Junqueras, and the agents were besieged for hours. Caram also declared herself a personal friend of former Catalan president Artur Mas and defended the leaders convicted for the sovereign challenge.
In an interview given in December 2018, the nun stated that "a people has the right to decide what it wants to be, it is not a catastrophe" and expressed her sadness for having "people in prison".
Now, her work focuses on aid to Ukraine. The medal will be awarded at an institutional event whose date is pending confirmation, but usually takes place around the feast of the patrons of the National Police.
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