Catalan Protests Clog Barcelona After Separatist Leaders Jailed
Catalan separatists who tried to break away from Spain in 2017 were handed jail sentences of up to 13 years by the Supreme Court
(Bloomberg) -- Catalan separatists took to the streets of Barcelona Monday after many of their leaders were jailed by Spain’s Supreme Court over an attempt to break away from Spain in 2017.
Demonstrators blocked some of the city’s main avenues, as well as highways outside the regional capital, collapsed access to the city’s airport and cut off one high-speed train line. The metro from the city center to the airport was disrupted.
The unrest will inject an extra dose of rancor into Spain’s political system as the country prepares for its fourth general election in as many years on Nov. 10. Despite winning the last vote in April, acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez failed to piece together a majority as he struggled to manage the divisions left behind by the Catalan crisis.
Earlier in the day, Spain’s top court sentenced former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras to 13 years in jail in a ruling that marks a watershed in relations with the troubled region. Eight other activists were given lesser terms of between nine and 12 years. Carles Puigdemont, the regional leader who was the figurehead of the movement, remains in exile in Brussels after fleeing Spain two years ago.
The court ruled that Junqueras was guilty of sedition -- which involves preventing the application of the law -- and aggravated misuse of public funds. He helped to organize an illegal referendum and a month of protests that climaxed in an abortive declaration of independence in the regional parliament. He was cleared of the more serious charge of rebellion.
“The measures ostensibly designed to bring about independence as promised were manifestly not up to the task,” the court said. “The state at all times retained its control of military, police, judicial and even social forces. And, by doing so, it made any bid for independence a mere pipe-dream.”
Following the decision, the Supreme Court reactivated a European warrant for Puigdemont’s arrest.
In a televised statement in Spanish and English, Sanchez pledged to ensure the court’s sentences will be carried out and said the verdicts showed Spain’s democracy functions in a fully transparent way and all citizens are equal under the law.
Joaquim Torra, the pro-independence president of Catalonia, said he would seek a meeting with Sanchez and King Felipe VI to discuss the “unjust and anti-democratic” sentences.
International Support
The separatists have the right to appeal to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and are likely to consider that option -- throughout the saga they have tried to enlist international public opinion to increase pressure on the government in Madrid. Potential allies have offered only qualified support, wary of the separatists’ willingness to break the law.
“These politicians have been jailed for seeking to allow the people of Catalonia to peacefully choose their own future,” Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Twitter. “Any political system that leads to such a dreadful outcome needs urgent change. My thoughts and solidarity are with all of them and their families.”
The four-month trial was the most politically charged hearing that Spain has seen since another Catalan leader, Lluis Companys, was tried in 1940 after he too had declared independence. A military court under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco convicted Companys and sentenced him to death after hearing evidence for a single day.
Junqueras has a portrait of Companys on the wall above his desk in his party headquarters in downtown Barcelona.
Catalonia’s push for independence added a Spanish dimension to a populist surge that roiled politics across the western world following the financial crisis, bringing Donald Trump to power in the U.S. and setting the U.K. on course to leave the European Union.
In Spain, it helped topple one prime minister -- the conservative Mariano Rajoy -- and left the parliament so divided that the country has been unable to pass a budget since. In Catalonia, the regional government is controlled by separatist parties, but hamstrung by the ideological rifts between them, while hundreds of companies including CaixaBank SA and Naturgy Energy Group SA have moved their legal domicile out of the region as a result of the crisis.
To contact the reporters on this story: Rodrigo Orihuela in Madrid at rorihuela@bloomberg.net;Thomas Gualtieri in Madrid at tgualtieri@bloomberg.net;Charlie Devereux in Madrid at cdevereux3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Charles Penty
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