Thousands of people demanded the freedom of jailed Catalan leaders during a protest in Barcelona on Tuesday, marking one year since their imprisonment.
SOT, Quim Torra, President of Government of Catalonia (Catalan): “We insist and demand freedom for the political prisoners. We demand it as Amnesty International has done because it is not a crime, because voting is not a crime, because what is a crime is that you are beaten if you go to [vote]. This is the crime and one day the people who ordered the repression of the Catalans who were peacefully voting will be judged.”
SOT, Quim Torra, President of Government of Catalonia (Catalan): “We cannot accept this judgment, we cannot accept the sentences of this farce because a political cause has been built against the independence movement.”
SOT, speaker (Catalan): “And let it be clear to the State: there are many of us and we will be thousands in the streets, denouncing repression, demanding the release of political prisoners and saying that we are not worth anything other than self-determination. We are making it clear that we will never give up, we will never give up because we are radically democratic, we will never give up sharing this project of the republic, a republic of free men and women.”