The Catalan case this Monday has reached the UN. Relatives of the prisoners, together with the Catalan Institute of Human Rights, have travelled to Geneva to denounce the violation of human rights in Catalonia. As remarked by Laura Masvidal, Joaquim Forn's wife, the objective for the trip is to make a "cry for help" to the international community.
"For us, being here today is very important, because when you feel defenceless at home and you read the judge's arguments and you see they're not close to what they should be, you need someone to listen to you," said Masvidal. She denounced the pretrial detention without bail imposed on pro-independence leaders including her husband: "it seems like a lie that, in 2018, this would be happening in a state of the European Union.
For her part, Txell Bonet, Jordi Cuixart's partner, said that children's rights were being violated, as three of the four prisoners have children under the age of 18. In her case, with an 11-month-old son, she has to travel more than 1,200km (750 miles) there-and-back for her child to be with his father. "Pretrial detention always has to be evaluated carefully and you have to look for alternatives because there is the superior good of the minor", she noted, referring to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Masvidal also spoke about Forn having tested positive for tuberculin in prison, and said that "having a person in prison with the risk that they leave ill or can catch some illness, well, it's something to think about". Nonetheless, she didn't want to give too much importance to the fact and instead emphasised the reasons behind their continued imprisonment near Madrid. "The justification for them to be in Estremera is that they are available to the judge, but he practically hasn't called them".
On that subject, she denounced both the logistical difficulties involved in going to the prison, near Madrid, once a week, as well as the high cost.
Bonet and Masvidal made their statements to the press in front of the UN headquarters in Geneva where, today and tomorrow, they will take part in various sessions about the regression of human rights in Spain. This afternoon, for example, Masvidal was on a panel alongside former Spanish Supreme Court judge Martín Pallin and senior lecturer in public protest law at the University of East Anglia (UK), Michael Hamilton, among others.
"The Constitutional Court is crossing the line"
Hamilton and Pallín also made brief statements to the press outside the UN building, discussing the political and human rights situation in Catalonia. Pallín denounced the criminalisation of a parliamentary act. "That doesn't make sense in a democratic Europe," he said.
In response to questions from the press, about the fact that the Constitutional Court can decide on whether to start the countdown to the deadline to invest a new president, Pallín said that the court's latest ruling turned it into an "orchestra court", in other words one which can be conducted, and that he believes it is "exceeding its functions". "Someone has deliberately taken advantage [of the situation] to give them powers which other constitutional courts don't have," he said. He also argued that Jordi Sànchez should be able to be invested president of Catalonia.
For his part, Hamilton denounced there being a "serious violation" of human rights in Catalonia and showed confidence that today's event would help make this clear to the international community. He also expressed the belief that freedom of reunion "has not been protected" in Catalonia and calls for an "international" reaction for the process to move "towards a solution".
Also participating in the event were the president of the Institute of Human Rights of Catalonia, David Bondia, one of the organizers; Rafael Ribó, Catalonia's ombudsman; lawyer Anaïs Franquesa; and Margalida Capellà, professor of international public law at the University of the Balearic Islands.
This week's events about Catalonia in Geneva are taking place in the city at the same time as the final week of the UN Human Rights council.