Amnesty : “Calling protests to obstruct legitimate police operations does not constitute a serious crime such as sedition or rebellion”

Amnesty International has called for the immediate release of a Catalan pro-independence leader who has been in prison for almost four months, saying his continuing detention without charge is excessive and disproportionate.
Jordi Sànchez, the former president of the influential grassroots Catalan National Assembly (ANC), has been in custody since mid-October, when he and another civil society group leader, Jordi Cuixart, were arrested as part of an investigation into alleged sedition in the run-up to the regional independence referendum a fortnight earlier.
The pair have been accused of using huge demonstrations to try to stop Spanish police officers from following a judge’s orders to halt the referendum, which had already been suspended by the country’s constitutional court.who is also an MP for the Together for Catalonia party of the deposed Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont.
Judge Pablo Llarena said he would not release the politician on the grounds that he could once again try to push for unilateral Catalan independence, adding that Sànchez had played a major role in “the mass demonstrations that favoured a social uprising”.
Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty’s Europe director, said that while Llarena could have used the opportunity to release Sànchez, he had instead aggravated an existing injustice.
“The extension of Jordi Sànchez’s provisional custody constitutes an excessive and disproportionate restriction on his right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” she said.
Van Gulik said the possible rebellion and sedition charges Sànchez and Cuixart faced were unjustified and should be dropped.

“Although calling protests to obstruct legitimate police operations can – if proof is produced of their commission – constitute a public order offence, it does not constitute a serious crime such as sedition or rebellion.”
The continuing detention of senior Catalan secessionist leaders, including the ousted regional vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, has prompted accusations that the Spanish courts are holding them as political prisoners – a claim denied by both judges and the Spanish government.Last week, Llarena refused to release the former Catalan interior minister, Joaquim Forn. Although Forn had already stepped down as an MP, the judge said he feared the politician could reoffend “given the uncertainty over whether the majority political will is to respect the legal order to achieve the aspiration of independence that [Forn] shares even today”.