{"id":23931,"date":"2018-12-01T16:22:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T16:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23931"},"modified":"2018-12-01T16:22:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T16:22:29","slug":"two-jailed-catalan-separatist-leaders-begin-hunger-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23931","title":{"rendered":"Two jailed Catalan separatist leaders begin hunger strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Two Catalan separatist leaders jailed pending trial in Spain over their role in last year’s failed independence bid have begun a hunger strike, their lawyer said.<\/p>\n

Jordi Sanchez, the former head of the influential grassroots ANC independence movement, and Jordi Turull, a former minister in the Catalan regional government, are taking this step to “raise awareness” of their unfair treatment by Spain<\/a>‘s justice system, lawyer Jordi Pina told journalists in Barcelona on Saturday.<\/p>\n

After Catalonia<\/a> declared independence from Spain last year, Madrid took direct control of the region and brought charges against Catalan leaders – including misuse of public funds and rebellion – nine of whom are in jail awaiting trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I did not recommend this action, it is a decision of my clients and they have my full support,” the lawyer said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement read by Pina, the two men accused Spain’s Constitutional Court of blocking their appeals against their imprisonment from reaching the European Court of Human Rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pina said he did not know if the other Catalan separatist leaders jailed in the Lledoners penitentiary located some 70km north of Barcelona would later join the hunger strike.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spain’s Supreme Court in October ordered a total of 18 former Catalan separatist leaders to stand trial. Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of up to 25 years<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trial expected in 2019<\/span><\/h2>\n

The trial is expected to start in early 2019 and will focus on the attempt by Catalan leaders to break away from Spain in October 2017 by staging a referendum despite a court ban and subsequently proclaiming independence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The announcement of the hunger strike comes a day after the first photo of the seven jailed Catalan leaders at the Lledoners prison was released by grassroots pro-independence organisation Omnium Cultural.<\/span><\/p>\n

The picture, which was splashed on the cover of Catalan newspapers on Saturday, shows the seven men smiling and wearing casual clothes in one of the courtyards of the prison.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spain’s central government repeated its argument that the jailed Catalan separatist leaders would have a fair trial and their rights were being respected.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We operate under the rule of law, we can respect their personal decision (to go on a hunger strike) but we must also understand that we are all equal under the rule of law,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Catalan separatist leaders jailed pending trial in Spain over their role in last year’s failed independence bid have begun a hunger strike, their lawyer said. Jordi Sanchez, the former head of the influential grassroots ANC independence movement, and Jordi Turull, a former minister in the Catalan regional government, are taking this step to “raise…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}