Nine MEPs from different countries who this Monday visited the prisons of Lledoners, Puig de les Basses and Mas d'Enric, where the nine Catalan political prisoners are being held in pretrial detention, have announced their wish to turn to the Spanish government to ask to be recognised as international observers during the trial to take place in the Supreme Court. One of the MEPs, José Bové from France, said, after the visit with his colleagues from the European Parliament, that the request is related to the fact that the Catalan prisoners are not guaranteed a just trial. It's not the first time MEPs have visited the prisons holding the Catalan political prisoners, after another delegation did so in September.
Now the indictments from the public prosecution service and the state's legal service have been presented, we're waiting for the court to announce the dates of the trial, which everyone agrees will be early next year. The state has everything ready for a harsh sentence (exemplary, they say), leaving clearly aside the position on the 1st October referendum reached by countries like Germany, Belgium, Scotland and Switzerland. There's no fear, it seems, of European embarrassment nor of Spanish justice losing international standing.
The way the prosecutors' indictment has been presented, describing events in a way which has little to do with the reality of those weeks, makes the presence of international observers very necessary. They won't change the court's decision but will act as megaphones for the unheard of situation faced by the Catalan political prisoners in a Spain whose institutions are falling apart. A state where the head judge claims a role which doesn't correspond to him and thanks the presiding judge of Barcelona's court number 13 for "changing the course of the history of our country" in a letter sent hours before the latter's death.
That the trial won't be just, in light of how the investigation has gone and the sentences prosecutors are asking for, can today be taken for granted. That the international public can follow it not only through the media but also through politicians from their respective countries is a democratic need.