The need to expose Spain's actions

The three victims of the 9-N participatory process, Artur Mas, Joana Ortega and Irene Rigau, are “the best way of demonstrating what is happening in Spain”, according to the Catalan government. Based on their own experience they can tell the world in first person “how fragile democracy is in Spain.” The government is relying on the former president, former vice president and former minister for education to educate Europe regarding the Spanish judicial persecution of Catalan independence and Catalans' desire to exercise their right to self-determination.

Carles Puigdemont's executive has not yet defined any specific action for the three ambassadors of the process to follow. In fact, the former president's international role was first announced when he stepped aside in favour of Puigdemont, but until now he has mostly been limited to trips to the United Kingdom and the United States to give lectures at Oxford and Harvard, respectively.

Government spokesperson Neus Munté yesterday said that the ruling barring Mas from office for two years “legally, but not politically” does not affect his duties as former president, his being addressed as “right honourable”, or his contribution to the Eugeni Xammar International Programme of Communication and Public Relations, as part of which he made the two visits to the aforementioned universities. And Puigdemont's cabinet now wants to use the victims' experience and fluency in languages to explain what it sees as a gross injustice.

At the end of yesterday's executive board meeting, Munté described the sentence by the Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) as “malicious” and noted that there is nothing benevolent or generous about imposing a penalty of two years' disqualification.