Jordi Cuixart: Let the impotence of the sentence become hope

On Thursday, Jordi Cuixart, the President of Omnium Cultural, wrote a letter to all members of the Catalan association which was published on their website under the headline “Carta des de la presó: ‘Que la impotència de la sentència es converteixi en esperança’“. This is a translation of the full letter into English.

Dear all,

Once again I am writing to you from Catalonia. Just a few hours have been enough to feel the solidarity of all of you. Infinite thanks.

The movement of the political prisoners closer to home is nothing more than a reflex of the democratic regression of the state. They want us to be discouraged and surrendered, and so the sentences will be hard and will hurt us. But believe me, there is only one way and it is to do it together.

Remember that no social conquest has ever been gifted. If we do not punish ourselves, if we do not give up sharing everything, if we know how to be united and act in a generous and empathetic manner, we will leave. But we must do it with coherence and determination, with culture as the principle element of social cohesion and limitless democracy.

Continue reading →

Amnesty International: At the end of the oral trial, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez should be released on bail

Amnesty International have once again called for the immediate release of the Catalan civil society leaders Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart from provisional detention. In a press release on their Spanish website entitled “Concluido el juicio oral, Jordi Cuixart y Jordi Sánchez deben ser puestos en libertad provisional“, they say they have written to the Spanish Prosecutor to demand the release of the Jordis, and express concern about the nature of the criminal offences of which they have been accused. This is a translation of the full press release.

At the end of the oral trial, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez should be released on bail

18 June 2019

Since we were informed of their imprisonment, Amnesty International has repeatedly stated that Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart should be released immediately. Now, the conclusion of oral trial before the Supreme Court is the time to review their situation of provisional detention and proceed to release them. Both have been in provisional detention since 16 October 2017. The Spanish courts have denied their release on numerous occasions. The organisation has sent a letter to the Public Prosecutor, insisting on this once again, and regrets that yesterday they were informed negatively against the release of Jordi Sànchez.

In its writs of 11 April and 14 May 2019, the Supreme Court referred to the development of the oral trial as “an element of indispensable deliberation” which advised ruling out Jordi Sànchez’s freedom, and recognised that any preventative measure involving the deprivation of liberty “is aimed, precisely, to ensure the defendant’s presence during the oral trial”.

With respect to Jordi Cuixart, the ruling of the Constitutional Court on 7 May 2019, which dismissed his appeal against the resolutions which denied his petition for provisional release, indicated that the said resolutions took into account the temporary proximity of the oral trial, in line with constitutional jurisprudence, which recognises as a legitimate aim of provisional detention ensuring the presence of the accused in the trial.

Amnesty International warns that, according to international standards of human rights, the longer provisional detention is prolonged, the greater the need for a rigorous examination to determine if it remains necessary and proportionate.

Continue reading →

Junts per Catalunya close European election campaign in London

Arriving to a standing ovation and cries of “independence”, President Carles Puigdemont and ministers Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí brought their whistle-stop tour of European cities to The Wesley Hotel near London’s Euston Station, promising to be the voices of Catalonia’s political prisoners and exiles in the European Parliament.

Introducing them, Anna Forn, daughter of one of those political prisoners, said that the Spanish judiciary’s decision to detain the Catalan politicians, yet to be convicted of any crime, for up to a year-and-a-half (and counting) was “a shame for the European Union”. “But,” she added, “we have three free voices who have challenged the Spanish state from the first moment in exile.”

Forn referred to Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí, who head the list for Junts per Catalunya – Lliures per Europa (“Together for Catalonia – Free for Europe”) in Spain, a country they have not been able to return to since they left for exile in October 2017. Forn’s father, Quim, is the Junts per Catalunya candidate for mayor of Barcelona, an election taking place on the same day as the European Elections in Spain and Catalonia. If elected (and polling suggests he will win a seat in the town hall, but will not come close to the mayoralty), he will not be able to take up his seat or his role, in the same way other political prisoners were prevented from taking their seats in the Catalan Parliament following the election in 2017. He is, however, still allowed to campaign from the videoconference room at Soto de Real prison in Madrid. Like many of the political prisoners, he has appeared via live feed at numerous campaign events in Catalonia’s capital city, and given media interviews, all timed around the tight prison and judicial schedule.

Forn, the younger, said she was in London to give her father the voice he wanted to have, to be the spokesperson for the situation they found themselves in. For her, she said, it was with pride she introduced Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí, members of the government “who made the 1st October referendum possible.” She was not the only one.

Continue reading →

On an evening with Alfred Bosch

I’m writing this article from the warmth and comfort of the 23:25 high speed service from London St Pancras, on what is otherwise a bitterly cold and uninviting evening, after having consumed probably one more white wine than is ordinarily healthy on a school night.

But before I evaluate the events of the past few hours, let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a Catalan politician, candidate for Mayor of Barcelona, and a relatively unknown English blogger with a handful of Twitter followers and an Instagram audience barely reaching into triple figures. Said blogger had a habit of posting an eclectic array of photographs to the photo sharing platform, from political demonstrations to mundane selfies to his latest culinary disasters.

And yet somehow, inexplicably, despite the 1,000 miles separating these two individuals (I may be rounding for simplicity) and despite their markedly different levels of importance, they ended up following each other on Instagram. No one knows for sure how long this unlikely match continued. Legend has it it was only for a few hours, while some will tell you it lasted for many months. All we know for sure is that it happened, and then it ended.

Continue reading →

Can the EU protect our fundamental rights?

This is a translation of an article I wrote for the Catalan newspaper VilaWeb entitled “La UE pot protegir els nostres drets fonamentals?“. VilaWeb publishes some of their own articles in English here.

Two and a half years ago, we Britons voted in the Brexit referendum.

As a democrat, I had always wanted to have the opportunity to vote, the opportunity to decide on our relationship with the European Union. But when this opportunity arrived, I did not know how to vote.

The European Union represents a great co-operation between countries, an economic power in which 28 nations can fight together for their interests, their economies, etc. For its citizens, the possibility of travelling and working in any European country is a right which makes the world – or, at least, the countries of this union – a little smaller and more open. Despite the mottoes of the far-right, were are all one race and we should be brothers and friends. We should live and work together.

At heart, I am a democrat. I believe in the sovereignty of national and regional parliaments. I believe, above all, in democracy. If the European Union wants to represent Europeans, before anything else it has to defend democracy and human rights. It has to defend these parliaments and rights with all of the strength which the member states give it. But it does not.

Continue reading →