Council of Europe: Spain endangers judicial independence

The Council of Europe calls the Spanish Kingdom out for police violence against voters in Catalonia, and also says Spain's anti-corruption measures are "wholly unsatisfactory", endangering judicial independence. The secretary general of the Council of Europe, former Norwegian prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland, has included the actions by the Spanish police during last year's referendum in Catalonia in his annual report published this Monday. In the section "Proper conduct of authorities during public events", Jagland mentions the referendum and the fact that the commissioner for human rights, Nils Muižnieks, sent a letter to Spain's interior minister, Juan Ignacio Zoido, expressing his "concerns regarding allegations of disproportionate use of force by law-enforcement authorities in Catalonia".