From: International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (UIT-CI)
The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, was arrested in Germany at the request of the president of the Spanish state, Rajoy. His detention takes place in a framework of a repressive offensive against the Catalan people and the independentists. Members of the government and leaders of the main Catalan popular organisations are in prison. Rajoy’s regime and the monarchy seeks to intimidate the Catalan people in their struggle for their national self-determination.
The response of the Catalan people was immediate. Thousands went out to repudiate the detention of Puigdemont. Summoned by the Catalan National Association (ANC) and the self-proclaimed Catalan «Committees for the Defense of the Republic» (CDRs), workers, youth and the Catalan people demanded a general strike and the freedom of Puigdemont and all political prisoners and persecuted since October 2017. The government of Rajoy responded with more repression, with nine detainees and more than 98 injured. There is a risk that the government of Angela Merkel, in solidarity with the repressive government of Rajoy, will concede the extradition of Puigdemont.
From the International Workers’s Unity-Fourth International (UIT-CI) we repudiate the detention of Puigdemont, we demand their freedom and of all political prisoners, as well as an end to the persecution and prosecution of the Catalan independence fighters. We call for the widest international solidarity with the Catalan people in defense of Free Catalonia and in repudiation of all forms of repression, criminalization and judicialization.
26 March, 2019
