BARCELONA: Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Barcelona today (15th of April) to protest the jailing of nine Catalan separatist leaders facing trial on “rebellion” charges.
Chanting “Freedom for the political prisoners”, they marched along Parallel Avenue, a main thoroughfare, many waving the red-and-yellow Catalan flag.
The protest comes six months after the first incarcerations of top Catalan separatist leaders for misuse of public funds, sedition and rebellion – which carries a prison sentence of 30 years and implies that a “violent uprising” took place – over their separatist push. “Since they could not decapitate separatism, they are trying to do it through the courts,” Roser Urgelles, a 59-year-old teacher held.
“They need to demonstrate that there was violence to execute the sentences that they want, so they invent it,” Roser Urgelles said, adding: “But we will continue to protest peacefully.”
Like thousands of others at the march, she wore a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with the jailed leaders, whom Catalan separatists consider to be “political prisoners”.
Spain’s justice minister, Rafael Catala, has called the use of yellow ribbons “insulting”, arguing that Spain has no political prisoners but “politicians in prison”. The Guardia Urbana, a Catalan municipal police force, said 315,000 people turned out.