The photograph is misleading. Like so many of the things that occur in Catalan politics for months, the image with which the last week the political independence imprisoned were brought together —the seven men, not the two women, who are separated in different prisons offered an image of unity that is far from the reality. At least in the political and in what that strategy is concerned to deal with the complicated trial by the procés that is scheduled to start in January.
If the pro-independence takes years of doing of a supposed unity of action its main asset, their different games —and a good part of the prisoners— are today farther away than ever from this unitary fight. The hunger strike that four of them began nine days ago has not done more to extend this distance. The way of real communication between the two major parties are practically broken. And is the protest of the prisoners, one of the most drastic that an inmate can carry out, is interspersed with a fratricidal struggle to lead the space independence that many, and particularly the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), living particularly bad.
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“The hunger strike, which we respect but do not share, it is the last strategy that have been taken out of the sleeve to pressure us to join in a single candidacy in the upcoming presidential election; they will not succeed”. Who says it is a leader of CKD is very similar to the president of the party, Oriol Junqueras. Those who attend this protest are members of Junts per Catalunya Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull and Quim Forn. In contrast, the second no one from the Republican Left, starting with Junqueras and ending by Carme Forcadell, Dolors Bassa and Raül Romeva. Esquerra considered little more than useless this action, and all about the looks “extemporaneous”. “Nor is it the right time to make an action of this caliber, nor will it have the effect you are looking for about the Constitutional Court”, explained another source of CKD, in this case, one of the leaders also processed in the cause of the procés.
The official reason that the proponents of the hunger strike have been given to carry this out is the reported delay of the Constitutional settle the different writs that the prisoners concluded months ago to ask for his freedom. The president Catalan, Quim Torra, the same orbit that the four prisoners on strike verbalize it as well: “The Spanish Constitutional Court continues delaying the process of appeal of the political prisoners against prison custody because they know that it is a step prior to a appeals before the european courts”.
The TC has on the table a thirty resources of the pro-independence prisoners. Will begin a debate this week, but will not work until into the month of January, have explained sources of the High court. If so, and if the prisoners do not waiver in their commitment, they could extend the strike for at least a month more, which would have unpredictable consequences for your health. The activists neither confirm nor deny that it will be as well. “I will strike the time to consider that I have to do it, I didn’t set neither a minimum nor a maximum,” said this week Jordi Sànchez in an interview written in the radio station RAC-1. Yes let clear one thing: you don’t want to take until the last consequences. “I don’t want to be the Bobby Ultrabet Sands Catalan,” he said in reference to the leader of the Irish Republican Army who died in 1981 after a hunger strike of 66 days in jail.
Outside the walls of the prison, this protest has taken on the complexion of political struggle between the pro-independence. The strike comes at a time of maximum weakness of the space that a day occupied convergence and union Democràtica, that after he inherited Junts per Catalunya and now the ex-president Carles Puigdemont want to Crida, your embryo of a political party that aspires to bring together all the pro-independence. Esquerra Republicana, which aims to do the same, and that the election polls will smile, it resists as cat belly up. The republicans, unlike Puigdemont, Torra and his faithful want to replicate the pro-independence to gather the strength: to take a step back in the pathway unilateral to join forces and achieve a referendum agreed with the State, this time with no deadline.
The hunger strike is also present in these strategies. A group of deputies loyal to Torra and Puigdemont, united under the seal Junts per the Republic, published this week a statement calling for outright the submission of all the pro-independence to the strategy of the former president fled in Brussels. “Political action pro-sovereignty claim unit environment to Crida. The most important challenge of the next few months is to add the maximum number of municipalities and in particular to recover Barcelona”, reads the note after expressing their support to the prisoners who are on strike. In a similar line have been expressed that opinion leaders coming to Puigdemont, as the journalist Pilar Rahola. “The strike should make you think seriously to the parties of independence. Enough of the struggles cainitas”.
Esquerra resists the pressure. At least for the moment. And their leaders are purposeful in her refusal to repeat a slate with the convergent and their heirs. “We’ve already done in your day and the results give for what you take,” reflects a member of the executive of the party. Now your main goal is to, in addition to setting a legal strategy to minimize the damage against their leaders prosecuted, grow by the left incorporating to sectors next to the common, the formation of the mayor, Ada Colau. Hence the rejection of the plane to join a joint list of independence for the municipal elections in Barcelona. With or without a hunger strike, the political control of the Catalan capital is the next big battle for independence.
200.000 accessions on the Internet and a fast citizen
At midnight December 1, Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Turull stopped eating. The ex-leader of the National Assembly Catalan (ANC) and the exconsejero of Presidència began so the last form of protest that have been found to denounce the “injustice” of their imprisonment: a hunger strike that claim indefinite, and that, in less than a week, has generated more than 200,000 accessions in the internet and a series of support actions; among others, a fast citizen planned for this Sunday in the monastery of Montserrat, zero kilometer catalanism.
To Sanchez and Turull joined, two days later, the exconsejeros Joaquim Forn and Josep Rull, all of them linked to Junts per Catalunya, the platform of the expresident Carles Puigdemont, and close to the former convergence and union. The political Left imprisoned —with the former vice president Oriol Junqueras to the head— not added to an initiative that seeks to pressure the Constitutional Court (TC) to unlock the resources that must resolve on the remand of the leaders of the procés.
The protocol establishes that the physicians monitor the state of health of the four prisoners in the prison Lledoners (Barcelona) every 48 hours —depending on needs— and are able to maintain the usual routines. Will, for example, to go to the dining room with the rest of the prisoners, though not to eat.
Pilar Calvo, a journalist who was in the lists of Junts per Catalunya in the last election, has been appointed spokesman of the prisoners on hunger strike, with a web page including, ‘vagadefam.cat’. Wednesday, Calvo visited for the first time, when Sanchez and Turull it had already been five days without eating food. “They are strong, determined, serene and grateful”, he explains, and adds that it is a “political act” and that, although not yet held the judgment by the procés, this was “the only way” to stir consciences.
Sources prison is shown critical with the decision of the four independence leaders, who put at risk their physical integrity and play a trick final to a circumstance that by far is the most serious in the cause of the procés: the supposed blocking of the Constitutional Court, which impedes their access to european justice. The TC has already announced that you will see the resources in January, but the same sources doubt that the prisoners can hold out until then. One of the preoccupations of Sanchez and the rest of the prisoners on strike is that, ” explains Calvo: that portion of the citizens think that they are “banalizando” a measure of both deep draft and with so many physical and mental health consequences.
