Free

The 7 prisoners who have lived together in the prison of Lledoners asked themselves before crossing the last armoured door of the penitentiary centre if they had to put on a "victory" or "funeral" face. Cuixart, a natural ally of joy, came out with an expression of victory, and Oriol Junqueras decided for a funeral, so as not to convey a lack of solidarity with the repressed. The situation sums up well the mixture of emotions of the pro-independence movement, the mixture of joy at seeing political prisoners become just politicians who can defend their ideas in freedom and the prospect of the long road ahead with exiles and those who have been repressed. The pardon is a step forward, but the negotiating table has no guarantee of success. The former president of the Parliament, Carme Forcadell, insisted that "the joy is not complete" with the exiles in European limbo and the Court of Auditors billing the public servants, and the former minister Dolors Bassa warned that "1,221 days in prison is not the end of anything". In spite of everything, Catalan society gains today a degree of freedom to evaluate the panorama after the battle, to make an honest balance and to make proposals for a country in need of reconstruction.

While the nine political prisoners were released from prison, in the Spanish Parliament the right and the far-right staged a Greek drama full of grandiloquent adjectives about homeland and betrayal. Three years later, politics becomes politics again.