The Ombudsman of Catalonia, Rafael Ribó, has informed the European Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, and the competent United Nations rapporteurs of the "disproportionate" accusations of rebellion and terrorism against members of the Catalan Committees for Defence of the Republic.
According to a statement, Ribó has informed the bodies of "the latest detentions of people accused of rebellion and terrorism", after Spain's Civil Guard arrested a member of the CDRs on Tuesday on both allegations.
The Ombudsman said that "freedom of expression and protest constitute fundamental rights protected by the highest national and international legal norms and that, even though these freedoms are not absolute", their limits have to be based on the law, proportional and for legitimate reasons.
"The actions persecuted in this case by the National Audience have to be considered 'prima facie' as expressions of legally-protected public freedoms," he argued.
The description of the CDRs' actions as rebellion or terrorism is, in Ribó's opinion, "clearly disproportionate, contrary to the principle of legality" and apparently has two aims: "on the one hand, to criminalise the protest and cause an dissuasive effect towards future demonstrations; and, on the other, to allow the National Audience to take on the investigation of events which, in virtue of the principle of predetermined judge in the law, would correspond to the investigative courts of the territories where they were committed".