Jailed Ministers Quim Forn and Josep Rull join the hunger strike

There are now four politicians in pre-trial prison taking part in protest. Jailed former ministers Quim Forn and Josep Rull have joined a hunger strike to protest the judicial process against pro-independence leaders, due to start in early 2019.

Forn and Rull joined former minister Jordi Turull and former activist and now MP Jordi Sànchez, who are now on their third day without any food. This means four of nine jailed leaders are now on hunger strike.

They announced to prison authorities that they are on "indefinite hunger strike." The lawyers of the politicians explain that they want to highlight that Spain's Constitutional Court is "blocking" their cases reaching the European Court of Humans Rights (ECHR) by delaying decisions on their appeals. The European Court of Human Rights only accepts for consideration cases which have gone through the whole national judicial path.

Forn, a fomer Home Affairs minister, has been in pre-trial jail for more than a year. Rull, who was minister of Territory, spent a month in jail in 2017 and entered pre-trial prison again in March last year.