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Interview
3 March 2019 2.00 h

Aamer Anwar

The lawyer and expert in human rights gives his take on independence and the trial of Catalan leaders

Aamer Anwar

The lawyer and expert in human rights gives his take on independence and the trial of Catalan leaders

“The world’s silence makes it an accomplice of repression” “If the world doesn’t want to look, then we have to make it look”
“The Catalan leaders are on trial with one hand tied behind their backs” “Spain doesn’t want to talk. Catalonia is making the same mistakes”

Aamer Anwar, has be­come a well-known fig­ure in Cat­alo­nia. He has been highly crit­i­cal of the Span­ish legal sys­tem, which he says is stuck in the Fran­coist past. He is also the lawyer of ex­iled for­mer min­is­ter, Clara Pon­satí (pic­tured below).

What do you think about the trial of in­de­pen­dence lead­ers, is it a hu­mil­i­a­tion?
Not a hu­mil­i­a­tion be­cause the lead­ers have at all times acted with dig­nity and courage, but it shows that the trial is ju­di­cial vengeance.
Is it im­por­tant for the world to re­mem­ber the ref­er­en­dum?
The world should be ashamed by its si­lence. Our first min­is­ter, Nicola Stur­geon, has given her sup­port, but the rest of Eu­rope’s si­lence makes it an ac­com­plice of the re­pres­sion.
What strat­egy do those in exile fol­low while the trial goes on?
Ag­i­tat­ing, protest­ing, being united and call­ing for in­de­pen­dence. If the world doesn’t want to look, then we have to make it look, be­cause what gen­uinely scares Spain are the Cata­lan peo­ple. You could see that in the vi­o­lent re­ac­tion to Oc­to­ber 1.
Will it be a fair trial?
In­ter­na­tional ob­servers have not been ac­cepted and they say the live broad­casts are enough, but that’s not true. We lawyers know that im­por­tant things take place in court­rooms when the cam­eras are off. They have not ad­mit­ted most of the de­fence’s wit­nesses. They re­jected United Na­tions ex­perts on free­dom of ex­pres­sion. Also the Om­buds­man, Rafel Ribó. And Car­les Puigde­mont. They have even ex­cluded Nobel prizewin­ners. They have not ac­cepted the im­ages of Oc­to­ber 1 but have al­lowed the tes­ti­mony of po­lice of­fi­cers. They are on trial with one hand tied be­hind their backs.
What does the trial mean for the in­de­pen­dence bid?
Spain set a trap and Cat­alo­nia fell for it. The in­de­pen­dence de­bate has ended since there have been po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers. And that’s un­der­stand­able, be­cause the im­pris­on­ment of politi­cians has upset many Cata­lans. It plays with peo­ple’s feel­ings, but I think that right now the two things need to take sep­a­rate paths: one path is the re­lease of the pris­on­ers, and the other is the path to in­de­pen­dence.
And what about Eu­rope’s role?
Cat­alo­nia has to stop trust­ing Eu­rope. It’s true that in the cor­ri­dors Eu­ro­pean politi­cians show their shock about what is hap­pen­ing in Spain, but the EU is not tak­ing any ac­tion, on the con­trary, it’s let­ting Spain do what it wants. Their si­lence makes them ac­com­plices. It’s true they are wor­ried, be­cause in the 21st cen­tury the con­flict is not being re­solved with di­a­logue and we have seen vi­o­lence used and the im­pris­on­ment of peace­ful peo­ple who merely obeyed their de­mo­c­ra­tic man­date. Spain is treat­ing Cat­alo­nia as if it were its last colony. It has the soul of a colo­nial­ist power, like the United King­dom. Cat­alo­nia is look­ing to­wards Eu­rope and that is a mis­take. For ex­am­ple, it makes no sense hav­ing one, two or even five MEPs on your side. It may have sym­bolic value, but in prac­tice it serves no pur­pose.
Scot­land got to vote in a ref­er­en­dum...
Yes! And the re­sult was a re­jec­tion of in­de­pen­dence. That’s democ­racy. Can you imag­ine the first min­is­ter of Scot­land or her gov­ern­ment being jailed for call­ing a vote?
What was the power of Oc­to­ber 1?
It’s the only time Spain has feared Cat­alo­nia. When peo­ple of all ages showed they weren’t afraid, that they wanted to cast their votes. And they also put their bod­ies on the line. That was when Spain showed its true face and lost the plot with the world watch­ing. The im­ages of Oc­to­ber 1 did a lot of dam­age to its image. When you see the im­ages on tele­vi­sion it could be any­where in the world, but not in Eu­rope right now.
What should the strat­egy be now?
Spain is beat­ing Cat­alo­nia in the game and doing so with a trial of po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers to win time. How long will the trial take? They could spend five years in prison. Or two. Or ten. Even if it’s only one day it seems too much, be­cause they have com­mit­ted no crime and are not guilty. I think Cat­alo­nia will have to wait until the sen­tenc­ing to re­think a strat­egy to react to the at­tack by the Span­ish state. And that makes sense, be­cause peo­ple are be­wil­dered by the trial. Mean­while, the pub­lic is de­mo­bil­is­ing, as it has no di­rec­tion from politi­cians. I doubt we’ll see over a mil­lion peo­ple on the streets, like on the last Na­tional Day. The po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers will be free when Cat­alo­nia is free. It seems like the in­de­pen­dence par­ties are more in­ter­ested in fight­ing each other for seats rather than the man­date they were given by the peo­ple of Cat­alo­nia. Spain thinks it can see things out. It’s a ploy of colo­nial­ist regimes. Unity be­gins to frac­ture, and that’s a tac­tic that the Span­ish state has stud­ied.
Not even talks with the So­cial­ists?
Pedro Sánchez is a wolf in sheep’s cloth­ing. In Scot­land and Eng­land peo­ple thought that with a So­cial­ist in gov­ern­ment the sit­u­a­tion would get bet­ter, but that has not been the case. He does not want di­a­logue; that’s not his goal. Where Cat­alo­nia is con­cerned there are no such things as so­cial­ists, all are on the far right on this issue. It’s not the politi­cians who are in charge in Spain. It’s clear the judges are in charge, that politi­cians like Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Casado are pup­pets of the ju­di­ciary, which is mak­ing all the de­ci­sions. Spain doesn’t want to talk and never will. Over hun­dreds of years, Cat­alo­nia has not man­aged to hold any sort of di­a­logue. Why should that change now? Cat­alo­nia is mak­ing the same mis­takes as al­ways. Peo­ple are wait­ing to learn whether Spain will lis­ten... whether it will allow a ref­er­en­dum. That’s what the Span­ish state wants be­cause that wastes time.
The pri­vate pros­e­cu­tor in the trial is the far-right Vox party.
Where do you see a far-right party act­ing as a pri­vate pros­e­cu­tor? It makes no sense why it is help­ing the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor, nor why it’s not been ex­cluded from the case. The trial is Spain’s vengeance against Cat­alo­nia.
Is there sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers in Spain?
There’s po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion and an ob­vi­ous lack of im­par­tial­ity. You can see a de­sire for ju­di­cial re­venge. I’m amazed that some­one can go to prison for more than 30 years for let­ting peo­ple vote in a self-de­ter­mi­na­tion ref­er­en­dum. At the same time, you re­main free if you are a cor­rupt politi­cian or, as long as you wear a uni­form, you can carry on with nor­mal life even after rap­ing some­one.
Has Spain ef­fec­tively taken hostages?
It’s as if a gang­ster went to your house and kid­napped your fam­ily at gun­point. And Spain has made it clear that it is not in­ter­ested in ne­go­ti­at­ing. There is no room for naivety, won­der­ing what Spain will do. There is no in­di­vid­ual more im­por­tant than the cause of in­de­pen­dence, and if you look at the his­tory of Cat­alo­nia, nine of eleven Cata­lan pres­i­dents have been im­pris­oned, ex­iled or ex­e­cuted. Franco re­mains alive in the state’s struc­tures, but it is the peo­ple of Cat­alo­nia who have the power. They can’t lock up a mil­lion and a half peo­ple! The prob­lem is that right now the Span­ish state is mak­ing Cata­lans afraid. And this fear is a mis­take that could have a cost for gen­er­a­tions to come. It’s the same fear peo­ple lived with in the time of Franco.

in­ter­view

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