Spain: the nine Catalan separatists pardoned get out of prison

Published on : 06/23/2021 – 12:52

The Catalan separatists pardoned Tuesday by the Spanish government were released from prison on Wednesday, June 23, after more than three years behind bars. A release intended to “turn the page” of the 2017 secession attempt.

Cheered by separatist activists, seven of them left Lledoners prison in Sant Joan de Vilatorrada around 12 p.m. (10 a.m. GMT), northwest of Barcelona, ​​AFP noted on the spot. They were welcomed by the Catalan regional president, Pere Aragonès.

Among them, Oriol Junqueras, former vice president of the independence regional government of Carles Puigdemont who had received the heaviest sentence with 13 years in prison, and Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, leaders of powerful separatist associations during the secession attempt .

The other two pardoned, ex-president of the Catalan Parliament, Carme Forcadell, and ex-member of the regional government, Dolors Bassa, were released at around the same time from two other women’s prisons where they were held in Catalonia. .

>> To see: Carles Puigdemont: “Catalonia poses the question of human rights to all of Europe”

“To end once and for all with division and confrontation”

In the rain, in front of Lledoners prison, Ignasi Solé, a 65-year-old retired mechanic, said he wanted to “thank” those that the separatists qualified as “political prisoners” for “the sacrifice they made for the Catalonia “.

Announced with great fanfare on Monday by the Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, this pardon, formally approved on Tuesday, should mark according to him “a new stage of dialogue” intended to “put an end once and for all with the division and the confrontation”.

These nine separatist leaders were arrested and then sentenced to terms ranging from 9 to 13 years in prison for their role in the 2017 secession attempt, marked by the organization of a self-determination referendum on October 1. A consultation prohibited by justice and punctuated by police violence whose images had been around the world.

The Catalan regional parliament then voted, a few weeks later, a futile unilateral declaration of independence. In response, Madrid had removed the regional government and put the autonomous region under trusteeship. Several members of the Catalan government had fled abroad, including Carles Puigdemont, now in Belgium and still subject to an arrest warrant in Spain.

The attempted secession of this rich region of northeastern Spain with 7.8 million inhabitants was one of the worst political crises experienced by Spain since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975.

“Amnesty” or “betrayal”

Partial, this pardon does not lift the penalty of ineligibility to which these separatists had been condemned. It is also “conditioned” on the fact that they do not commit a “serious new offense” for three to six years.

“This is the time. There is no better time to unite us than this one,” Pedro Sanchez said in a column published Wednesday by the daily El Pais.

If the Prime Minister, who must soon resume negotiations with the Catalan separatist government in order to try to find a solution to the crisis, stressed that this “new path” should allow “to turn the page” of 2017, he nevertheless hammered that “without Spain, Catalonia would be neither European, neither prosperous nor plural”.

One way of reaffirming its opposition to the independence of the region while the separatists are still camped on their demand for a self-determination referendum. They also continue to demand a total amnesty, that is to say an erasure of the offense, for all those convicted or prosecuted like Carles Puigdemont.

The right-wing opposition accuses Pedro Sanchez of “treason” and called on him to resign on Wednesday. “You are leaving prison nine delinquents in exchange for their commitment not to get you out of Moncloa”, the seat of the Spanish government, launched the leader of the Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, to Pedro Sanchez at the Chamber of Deputies, with reference to the support of part of the separatists for its minority government.

With AFP