This Wednesday marks a hundred days since the imprisonment of Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, presidents of the Catalan National Assembly and Òmnium Cultural, two bodies which have had special, or even decisive, roles in the growth of the Catalan independence movement. The Jordis, as they've been popularly known since then, entered Soto del Real prison near Madrid without bail on 16th October last year on the order of National Audience judge Carmen Lamela, who was initially in charge of the case, a situation of deprivation of freedom maintained by the current instructing judge, Pablo Llarena of the Supreme Court. Over this time, Sànchez and Cuixart have presented plenty of proof of their attitude to the demonstration on 20th September against the Civil Guard's searches of the Catalan Economy ministry, there are innumerable videos which support them, events for which they're accused of sedition.
This Tuesday, prosecutors at the Supreme Court asked the judge to deny Jordi Sànchez's request for release over the "risk of [hims] reoffending". The same measure has been requested for Joaquim Forn, who had made the same application and announced his intention to resign the seat as a deputy he won on 21st December as part of his defence strategy and to try and help his request. Such is the state of affairs for the good Forn, an honourable man, without enemies in the always disreputable world of politics. A public space for debate and dialogue which has ended up to a large extent reduced to repression and violence.
As the days pass, it's hard to imagine how this period, so painful for some, will be remembered. A period during which prision hasn't been used for what it was designed for: reeducation and social reintegration. All too often in these hundred days, the perception hasn't been this, but of a measure of the deprivation of liberty with a strong political component. For what purpose? Public punishment and the expulsion from political life of a generation of pro-independence leaders. The logic of force against the force of logic. Nobody can imagine what 100 days in prison would be like and how they would be coped with by people who, completely senselessly, have been deprived of their freedom (and who, in the opinion of many legal scholars, haven't committed any crime). Them, their families, their friends...
In a letter from Jordi Sànchez I recieved just hours ago, the former ANC president is aware of Spain's implacable attitude to the pro-independence leaders and is under no illusions about the possibility of a change which would allow him to leave custody. But, at the same time, he perfectly understands the current status of the debate in Catalan politics. The combination of the independence movements necessary resilience with the policy of repairing the damage caused by article 155. And, in the middle of it all, the election of a president by the Catalan Parliament. Maturity and management of the times facing a phase of (re)construction. Sànchez, like Cuixart, the imprisoned politicians and the government in exile, embodies the visible face of a Catalonia which Madrid has wanted to dismantle from Madrid and which, on 21st December, Catalans, with their votes, put back in their original places, against any and all logic that can be understood in the Spanish capital. From there, irritation, confusion and concern which, in the end, they can only express through disqualifications and insults. Too little to deal with the problem.