Prosecuting these peaceful advocates of the ballot box marks yet more of the authoritarianism we saw on referendum day
• Carles Puigdemont is the former Catalan president
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The most important political trial in Catalonia’s recent history is about to begin in Madrid. The trial is against members of the former government of Catalonia, the speaker of the Catalan parliament at that time and the leaders of Catalonia’s two largest pro-independence civil society groups.
These individuals will be prosecuted for having organised Catalonia’s referendum on self-determination on 1 October 2017. The charges, brought by the public prosecutor’s office and by the far-right Vox party representing the private accusation, are among the most serious of those envisaged by the Spanish criminal code: rebellion, misappropriation of public funds and civil disobedience.
There are 12 defendants – nine have already spent many months in prison. Four of them have been imprisoned for over one year. They may be sentenced to between 10 and 25 years in jail.
When, in September 2016, I announced to the parliament of Catalonia that the means of resolving the Catalan issue was “a referendum or a referendum”, I was committing myself to two premises that we have observed unfailingly: first, that Catalonia’s fate must be