More than 250 MEPs and MPs demand amnesty for Catalonia’s political prisoners

The EU-Catalonia Dialogue Platform has sent a letter to the Spanish PM, Pedro Sánchez, and the third vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, demanding the amnesty of Catalan pro-independence political prisoners and other victims of repression and exiles. More than 250 MEPs and members of various national and state parliaments from Europe and America have signed the petition, which remains open to receiving more support. Among the signatories are 50 members of the European Parliament: 28 are from the Greens, 12 from the European United Left and some socialists, conservatives and liberals. There are MEPs from 12 different states in the Union.

Along with these MEPs, members of state parliaments from Europe and America also sign the letter. There are, for example, 30 British MPs, from a diverse majority of parties, including Conservatives and Labor. There are also MPs from parties such as Sinn Féin in Ireland, the NVA and the Greens in the parliaments of Flanders and Belgium, the Left Bloc in Portugal and the Communist Party of the Czech Republic. Deputies from the HDP in Turkey, the Quebec Bloc in the parliaments of Quebec and Canada, the Broad Front in Uruguay and the Ecuadorian Citizen Revolution Movement are also signing.

MEPs recall Spain’s judicial crackdown on Catalonia’s independence movement and the criticism raised by Amnesty International and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. They also note that independence won 52% of the vote in the recent 14-F elections. They call for courageous steps to be taken “towards normality and the resolution of the conflict by purely democratic means”, and state that amnesty, with all the necessary legal and institutional changes, must be the beginning of a process of dialogue and negotiation for a political solution to the conflict based on democracy, mutual respect and respect for the democratic rights of the Catalan people.