CATALONIA Release all the political prisoners immediately !
For the last four months, repression has been unleashed in Catalonia.
Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, officials of democratic associations, were thrown in jail more than three months ago; Oriol Junqueras, who was nevertheless elected as a member of the autonomous Parliament on 21 December, is still being detained. The deposed President and three other ministerial advisers of his government are still in exile in Brussels, under threat of being thrown in jail if they set foot on Spanish soil; hundreds of mayors, teachers, other workers and activists have been summoned to court and charged with rebellion and sedition, in other words charged with organising a violent uprising against the Spanish State. Catalan autonomy has been suspended under Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, and it is Rajoy who is governing, from Madrid with his ministers.
What is their “crime”? The Spanish monarchy and its government are punishing them for organising the vote through which the Catalan people freely declared themselves in favour of the Catalan Republic on 1 October 2017.
This brutal repression by the Rajoy government and the monarchy, which began with the huge police violence against people who were voting on 1 October, has the unconditional support of the European Commission, the governments of the leading countries of the European Union (Macron, Merkel, May, etc.), as well as the Trump administration.
On 28 January, the monarchy, the government and – following their diktats – the Constitutional Court went a step further in restricting rights, in violation of their own laws and legal precedents, by forbidding the majority of the autonomous Parliament elected on 21 October to appoint the President of their choice, in the person of Carles Puigdemont.
We are activists of all political tendencies of the democratic and labour movement from the Spanish State and all over Europe. Together with all the workers of Europe, we have seen the vast majority of the Catalan people peacefully and courageously mobilise for the Republic, and we have seen the State respond with police brutality, legal prosecutions and the suppression of their rights. We cannot remain impassive! We unconditionally stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Catalan people for their rights to be respected!
We defend their right to freely decide their own future, to rid themselves of the monarchy and the institutions of the 1978 Constitution, which guarantee the continuity of Francoism.
We defend their right to constitute their own Republic, just as we defend the right of all the peoples of the Spanish State to constitute their own Republics and – if they so wish – to freely form their own union of Republics.
We, activists of the labour and democratic movement from the Spanish State and throughout Europe, call for united action throughout Europe for the following:
Release all the political prisoners immediately!
Cancel all the legal prosecutions!
Freedom for the Catalan people to choose their own representatives! Hands off the Catalan Republic!
The first endorsers (click here to see the list)
I publicly endorse this appeal:
Contact adress : appel.catalogne@gmail.com