Jordi Cuixart to the UN: “Spanish repression in Catalonia is not over”

Omnium President Jordi Cuixart has denounced to the United Nations Human Rights Council that Spain’s repression of the Catalan independence movement is not over. “I spent almost four years in prison” he recalled yesterday in a telematic speech. This is the first time that Cuixart has spoken at the UN Human Rights Council and he has used the chance to tell about the hundreds of Catalan citizens who have open causes “for having participated in peaceful protests” linked to the referendum.

That is why Cuixart has asked to the UN Special Rapporteur on Rights to Peaceful Assembly, Clement Voulé, to pressure the Spanish authorities in the direction of a legal amnesty process for all those accused for poltical reasons.

“I ask you to make Spain fulfill its international commitments” he told Voulé, who appeared at the UN Human Rights Council meeting on Thursday to present his annual report on the right to peaceful protest in the world, where he has included the complaints by the excessive use of police force in Spain. However, he does not mention the case of Cuixart or the other pardoned pro-independence leaders.

Cuixart warned the rapporteur that “if political repression is allowed in a democratic state like Spain”, authoritarian countries will feel “legitimized in their anti-democratic practices.” “We, the civil society, will never stop protesting. Defending human rights in Barcelona is also doing so in Hong Kong, Bogota or Cairo. That’s why we will do it again”, he concluded.