Violation of Fundamental Rights in Europe: The Catalan Trial as a Case Study
CATALONIA
'The question of independence may be more or less important for us. We
might even be totally against it but this is not the issue we wish to
draw attention to here.
The precision and excellence of the legal
arguments presented by Benet Salellas, lawyer for one of the accused in
the trial—Jordi Cuixart—provides a clear example of the dangers
presently threatening human rights in Spain and Europe.
Unlike the others accused (him and all of them in jail since almost 2 years,
before been convicted), his client has NEVER been a politician. He is a
businessman and president of the association Omnium Cultural, which is
pro-independence but always working within its traditional, totally
regularised framework of activities ever since the association was
founded in 1961. Since then, with dozens of branches throughout
Catalonia, it has engaged in a wide range of activities promoting
Catalan language and culture.
We have transcribed and subtitled part
of Salellas’ defence statement because what is happening in Catalonia
is not a problem of Catalonia but a problem of Europe and the democratic
principles on which it is supposed to be founded.
Catalonia is not
the only case with signs of a drift to authoritarianism in a country’s
institutions. These patterns are being repeated in Hungary, Poland, the
Czech Republic and elsewhere. This is why it is important to detect them
and make them known so that Europe and its peoples will be able to
respond and reaffirm the values of democracy and basic freedoms.'
