Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has welcomed a report by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) that called for the immediate release of 3 Catalan political prisoners – former vice-president of Catalonia, Oriol Junqueras, and two Catalan civil society leaders, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi S\u00e0nchez.<\/p>\n
All were arrested and imprisoned in late 2017 and are among 12 Catalan political prisoners currently on trial in Madrid. In recent weeks Oriol Junqueras was elected as an MEP and Jordi S\u00e0nchez won a seat in the Spanish congress.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI travelled to Madrid in March and for two days attended the trial of the 12 Catalan political prisoners. These 12 political and civil leaders are in the dock in what has all the trappings of a political trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis UNWGAD report concludes that the detention of Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi S\u00e0nchez is arbitrary. It also calls for their immediate release and that they should be offered the right to obtain compensation and other forms of reparation in accordance with international law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis UN report is a clear condemnation of Spain\u2019s breach of fundamental human rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI welcome this report and I join the calls for the Spanish government to urgently abide by it conclusions and immediately free these political prisoners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a political issue, not a legal one. The Spanish Government needs to enter into meaningful dialogue with the Catalan Government to find a political solution. It needs to stop using the police and the legal system to attack the Catalan independence movement, which is a legitimate political movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be raising this report with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and calling on him to raise the issue directly with his Spanish counterpart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has welcomed a report by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) that called for the immediate release of 3 Catalan political prisoners – former vice-president of Catalonia, Oriol Junqueras, and two Catalan civil society leaders, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi S\u00e0nchez. All were arrested and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,132,109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catalonia","category-spain","category-un"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3817","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=3817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3818,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3817\/revisions\/3818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}