With six days to go before Catalan pro-independence leaders go on trial at Spain's Supreme Court, Catalonia's foreign minister has announced that he will travel "to the main European capitals to explain the truth of this trial".
Alfred Bosch, speaking in the Parliament today, has outlined the main aspects of an initiative based, he said, on "explaining the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". He plans to talk to the media, political leaders, ambassadors, think tanks and others.
And what is the truth, from the Catalan government's point of view? That it's "a political trial against political prisoners", that "they are accused of crimes which imply violence when there wasn't any" and that "holding a referendum was decriminalised in Spain" when Zapatero was prime minister.
Bosch also wants to note that whilst some pro-independence leaders are in prison in Spain, "the rest of their government colleagues who are in exile are free because the European judges who have evaluated [the case] believe they're not guilty".
This follows the recent announce of Global Spain, the Spanish government's campaign "to clean up its image". Bosch says that "if they're doing so it's because they feel insecure before the international community, because they have to hide their own weaknesses". He criticised the government for spending over a million euros of taxpayers' money to fight the independence movement.