“We’ll continue to attempt referendums, without violence”

Six tweets by Omnium Cultural or its head were the only elements of “evidence” that the prosecutor, Jaime Moreno, presented against Jordi Cuixart, in the Supreme Court today, to justify charges of rebellion which could result in 17 years in prison, and 498 days of pre-trial custody.

Cuixart took the prosecution’s questions head-on, which were geared at trying to show he had been attempting to cause violence to occur from within Catalan contingents. To one question, he responded, “violence is simply not in Catalan society’s DNA; we will continue to attempt referendums, without violence”.

The President of the court, Manuel Marchena, allowed time for Cuixart to make a lengthy explanation of his definition of civil disobedience, on the premise that this was what his organisation was encouraging from Catalan civil society, once the Constitutional Tribunal had ruled out a legal avenue for a referendum in 2017. Cuixart went as far as outlining the case of a Dutch village which held a 900 hour mass, with the objective of blocking the deportation of a citizen, which resulted in progressive changes to laws. “The role of Omnium is to reinforce democracy” he said, and asserted that they will continue to hold demonstrations to “have a more just society”.