Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has expressed his party\u2019s concern at the pending prosecution of Mr. Arthur Mas, the former President of Catalonia, and two former Ministers, for facilitating a non-binding consultation on Catalan independence which took place on 9 November 2014.<\/p>\n
Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Mas, along with former Ministers Joana Ortega and Irene Rigau, will come before the High Court on Monday 6 February. They are being prosecuted for helping to organise a non-binding vote on independence in 2014 in which over 2 million people voted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis vote took place because the Spanish Government refused to facilitate a democratic vote on Catalan independence. The impressive turnout sent a clear message that the Catalan people want a democratic, legal, and binding referendum to be held.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are being accused of civil disobedience for organising an \u2018informal independence consultation\u2019 and if found guilty they could be banned from public office for 10 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecution of democratically elected politicians for holding popular polls and consultations puts at risk the very democratic standards that people hold dear throughout the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cI am calling on the Spanish Government, even at this late stage, to reconsider the pending prosecution Mr. Mas, Ms. Ortega and Ms. Rigau.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditionally there is also the continued prosecution of the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Ms. Carme Forcadell, for facilitating a debate and vote on independence in the Catalan Parliament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Spanish Government needs to resolve its disagreements with Catalan politicians, including on an independence referendum, through a process of mutual dialogue and respect. They cannot arbitrarily stifle, ignore, or ban the democratic demands of a section of people who are seeking alternative structures outside the current Spanish State.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has expressed his party\u2019s concern at the pending prosecution of Mr. Arthur Mas, the former President of Catalonia, and two former Ministers, for facilitating a non-binding consultation on Catalan independence which took place on 9 November 2014. Deputy Crowe said: \u201cMr. Mas, along with former Ministers Joana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catalonia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2983,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions\/2983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}