Political prisoners call to defend self-determination and amnesty with a "shared strategy".
Pro-independence leaders denounce that State "powers" have "imposed" the date of the elections
BarcelonaFour days after the election campaign began, all political prisoners gathered this afternoon in the gardens of the Palau Robert in Barcelona. The pro-independence leaders have participated in an Òmnium Cultural act in which they have made a call to go out to vote on 14-F to defend the right to self-determination and to fill the ballot boxes "with dignity and hope". The nine pro-independence leaders have read a joint manifesto in which they are also committed to form a Government after the elections that works with a "shared strategy" that is at the service of "social reconstruction and national liberation" .
Together for the first time since the trial of 1-O, Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull, Raül Romeva, Carme Forcadell, Dolors Bassa, Jordi Cuixart and Joaquim Forn have demanded that the State put an end to the repression and have returned to claim amnesty as the only solution for prisoners to leave prison and exiles to return to Catalonia. The pro-independence leaders warned that the state "seeks to divide those who fight" and stressed the need "to move forward united in diversity". "The open prison regime will be ephemeral", they have admitted, because they calculate that the State Prosecutor will appeal this regime of semi-freedom "in a matter of days". All pro-independence leaders left prison last Friday - Carme Forcadell did it a day later - just the day the election campaign began and most of them have participated in electoral events for JxCat and ERC.
In the joint manifesto, the prisoners have also accused the "powers" of the State "of imposing" a date for the elections in the middle of the pandemic and have "forced citizens to choose between the protection of the right to life and the right to political participation". "Hiding behind courts that continue to do politics, their contempt for the institutions and Catalan society is so great that they are willing to jeopardise the health of voters and the democratic legitimacy of the results," they have denounced. After reading the joint manifesto, all pro-independence leaders have raised signs reading 'Amnesty'.