MEPs stand for Forcadell

A huge number of people came together yesterday, from across various legislative bodies, to rally behind Carme Forcadell, the former Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, currently in custody on remand – a political prisoner, jailed since March of this year, without a trial. At an event at the Parliament of Catalonia, put together by former speakers Ernest Benach, Núria de Gispert and Joan Rigol, a manifesto, written by those ministers of parliaments and other European legislative bodies who signed it, was presented, in the company of the Forcadell family, and Quim Torra. The full text of the manifesto can be read on www.freecorcadell.org, in five different languages. The manifesto, is signed by 524 deputies, from 32 different legislative bodies from around the world, in 19 different countries. It expresses solidarity with Forcadell, calls for her “immediate release”, and urges the governments in question to seek conflict resolution, whilst using “non-criminal channels”. “We would have done the same thing as Carme, and that is why we demand her freedom,” said De Gispert, her predecessor. Among the supporters are the President of the Welsh Assembly, Elin Jones, who attended yesterday, and will visit Forcadell in prison today. “It’s shocking that as speaker she has been jailed without trial for doing her job, like I do”, Jones lamented, before adding that her parliament had received this news with “anger and astonishment”, and declaring her support for the right to decide regarding self-determination in Catalonia. “I am here to ask for the immediate and unconditional freedom of Speaker Forcadell,” she said, in Catalan.