When, on 7th January last year, I visited Oriol Junqueras in Estremera prison, almost a year ago now, of all his confessions there was one which I've remembered more than once over these twelve months and which comes back to mind this Twelfth Night with the magnitude of the enormous injustice that's taking place. "None of all the nights in prison is like the solitude of the 5th of January"1. The politician, the vice-president of Catalonia fired in that apparently constitutional coup d'état, gave way to the father and person who had spent Epiphany Eve behind bars. Not far from Junqueras, in another visiting booth, was Quim Forn. They'd both been imprisoned the same day, 2nd November 2017. Neither of them has left prison since that day; they've now spent 429 days deprived of their freedom. That's a few days fewer than the Jordis, Sànchez and Cuixart, who've spent 446 days in prison.
I've been able to talk with the four over these months and see how the worst predictions for their release have come true in this pretrial detention as unjust as it is disproportionate. It will be the second Twelfth Night they won't have been able to hug their families, their children. Many of them, still of dreaming age, hoping that on such a magical night as this the thing that would have been the greatest gift might come true, that of having their fathers with them. How much damage was done unwittingly with that unjust article 155 and the general case against the independence movement!
This Epiphany Eve, the list has grown and Carme Forcadell, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa won't be with their families either. The solitude of a special night that Oriol Junqueras was talking to me about. Those of us who enjoy the freedom they lack, a freedom even shared by the exiles able to headline extraordinary events like, for example, the one the culture minister in exile, Lluís Puig, took part in this Saturday for the Council for the Republic in Perpignan, Northern Catalonia, leaving his place of residence in Brussels, we have to feel very close to their solitude for it to be as minimal as possible.
On 7th January 2018, in Estremera, I would have bet anything that one year later the legal situation of the Catalan political prisoners wouldn't be the same. What a mistake to believe that justice would end up prevailing.
1. Translator's note: In Spain, Epiphany, 6th January, is one of the most important dates of the Christmas season. It's a public holiday when families gather together and when children traditionally receive their presents.