Yesterday the Catalan National Assembly of England coordinated a meeting in Portcullis House, at Westminster, of relatives of political prisoners and members of the All Party Parliamentary Group On Catalonia (APPG Catalonia), a group of British MPs who set it up as a work and study committee with the aim of furthering links between parlamentarians in the two territories, so as to monitor the Catalan conflict and to keep abreast of events in Catalonia. The objective was to decry the situation of both prisoners and relatives, and the constant violation of rights they are enduring.
Txell Bonet, Jordi Cuixart’s partner, and Anna Forn, Joaquim Forn’s daughter, were the voices in charge of transmitting the allegations. Ms. Forn sought the complicity of the Members of Parliaments when she reminded them that the United Kingdom was able to “hold an agreed referendum without problems or violence”, for which reason “you must understand the legitimate demands”. Ms. Forn stated that holding a referendum “can never be a crime,” and she predicted that they will go to speak wherever they can, for the political prisoners “have not committed any crime”.
For her part, Ms. Bonet explained the “unjustified” preventive prison that keeps Jordi Cuixart and the other detained colleagues locked up, which has resulted in a “state of emergency in Catalonia”, and also denounced the “connivance” of the Spanish media in the whole process. Ms. Bonet also stated that, in the 39 weeks that Sr. Cuixart has been in jail in Madrid, she has had to travel more than 50,000 km to see him for just a few minutes each time.
Both took the opportunity to dismantle many of the charges laid against the political prisoners, citing Diego López Garrido, who was in charge, at the time the crime of rebellion was being drafted, and even quoting one of the lawyers, who admitted to Anna Forn that the whole procedure “has nothing to do with the law”.
The chair of the group that promoted the meeting, Hywel Williams, MP for the Party of Wales, Plaid Cymru, was shocked at the “lack of division of powers” in Spain and “how politicized the Spanish court system is”.
Carles Suàrez, ANC England’s coordinator, singled out the event, as another chance “to explain inside the UK Parliament what is going on in Catalonia” and to “increase support” inside it.
