Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has received Catalan vice president Pere Aragonès in Glasgow and pinned a yellow ribbon on to her jacket in solidarity with Catalonia's political prisoners. The Catalan politician visited the Scottish leader on Sunday and at the beginning of a meeting discussing the political situation of both nations, Aragonès presented Sturgeon with two gifts: the book Born in Catalonia and the symbolic yellow bow, which she attached to her lapel.
The visit of the Catalan second-in-command coincided with Scotland's largest ever pro-independence demonstration, held on Saturday, when around 100,000 people marched in favour of a second self-determination referendum to achieve independence from the UK.
In the meeting, Sturgeon and Aragonès discussed self-determination, comparing the situation in the United Kingdom with that in the Spanish state - where the Socialist government of Pedro Sánchez rules it out entirely for Catalonia, in the same way as Mariano Rajoy's executive had done in the previous PP government. Concluding the encounter, the Catalan vice president once again stressed that the "route to independence is through democracy" and that it is necessary to persevere, "which sometimes means waiting for longer than you want".
The Scottish premier previously received the Catalan president, Quim Torra, in July in Edinburgh, and after that encounter the Catalan and Scottish governments released a joint statement in defence of the right to self-determination and promised to maintain close ties between their countries. The communiqué provoked strong irritation in Spain's foreign ministry.
Yellow ribbons have become the symbol of solidarity with the Catalan political prisoners and exiled leaders since the first imprisonments of pro-independence leaders by Spanish authorities just short of a year ago. Nine Catalan civil and political leaders involved in last year's referendum and independence process have been held in preventive detention for months, awaiting a trial whose start date is still unclear. Other leaders are in exile. Some unionist groups and politicians actively work to remove all such ribbons from public spaces.