Today, 79 years after President of Catalonia Lluís Companys was sentenced to death by Franco’s military tribunal, the Spanish Supreme Court has published the sentences in the trials of the Catalan political prisoners charged with sedition, misuse of public funds and organising an illegal referendum. Today the Spanish State has also issued a European Arrest Warrant for President Puidgemont.
Speaking on today’s announcements, People Before Profit Councillor Tina MacVeigh who was invited to Catalonia as an International Observer in the wake of the October 1st Referendum in 2017, said:
“This verdict sets a dangerous precedent, limiting democracy, freedom of expression and protest not just in Spain, but potentially across the whole of the EU. It will also serve to deepen political conflict in Catalonia. There are already demonstrations taking place all over Catalonia today to protest the outrageous convictions and sentences and already the police are responding with horrific brutality.
“The verdict of the trial against the Catalan pro-Independence leaders combined is 100 years of imprisonment. This is a folly. It is judicial folly pushed as it is by a political agenda and cannot be accepted by anyone who stands for human rights and democracy. Only dictatorships jail peaceful political and civil society leaders.
“The silence of the Irish Government and the EU is deafening, I am calling on Leo Varadkar to condemn this outrageous trial and verdict and today’s police violence on behalf of the Irish people who were outraged by the violence perpetrated by the Spanish State on the 1st of October, in the wake of the 1st of October, since then and will also be today.”
