On 22nd January 2020, Spain had to answer to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. 117 of the 191 United Nations states entitled to ask questions had announced questions or comments on the human rights situation in Spain. Japan referred to the decisions of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which had not been implemented by Spain, to release immediately the political prisoners from Catalonia and to initiate a criminal investigation into the circumstances and who was responsible for their detention, which was manifestly contrary to human rights. Critical remarks and statements came particularly from Belgium, Japan, Mexico, Sweden and Switzerland, but also from the U.S.A. and Germany. Venezuela also made a political recommendation on the Catalonia crisis.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has received numerous complaints about serious violations of human rights by the Spanish state. 89 associations and institutions have submitted to the Human Rights Council their reprimands concerning various violations by Spain of the human rights laid down as mandatory law in the United Nations human rights covenants. The complainants include Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, International Trial Watch, EuroMed Rights, the Human Rights Institute of Catalonia (IDHC, Institut de Drets Humans de Catalunya), Òmnium Cultural and the European Civil Forum. Many of the complaints received have been incorporated into the report, which is now before the representatives of the 47 States responsible for examining and assessing the human rights situation in Spain. In particular, the report criticises the disproportionate violence perpetrated by Spanish police forces on 1 October 2017. In its decision on the question of the extradition of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont to Spain, the Higher Regional Court of Schleswig-Holstein had already stated that it seemed incomprehensible to use such brute force against a referendum that was considered illegal, when in the event of nullity it would have been sufficient to establish this after the referendum. But it also concerns the accusation of further serious violations of human rights by the Spanish State.
Not only 89 non-governmental organizations, but also United Nations bodies themselves have submitted a report to the Human Rights Council concerning the disproportionate use of force by the Spanish police and the request by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations Human Rights Council that those political prisoners from Catalonia who had appealed to the Human Rights Council be released immediately from their pre-trial detention and that the trial against them be annulled. Spain did not comply with this request and even sentenced the political prisoners to long prison terms, without there being any legally valid basis for this in Spanish criminal law.
Even if the states in the Human Rights Council are generally very reticent and only formulate recommendations and assessments, the unusually high number of questions — around 61% of the states represented in the United Nations had announced questions about the human rights situation in Spain! — suggests that the human rights situation in Spain is being followed with great attention worldwide.
The final text, on which only the 47 states represented in the Human Rights Council will decide, will probably be published in June 2020. It may be diplomatic and restrained: In the face of the greatest and most massive human rights violations in Europe for decades, Spain will sooner or later be in the pillory of the world public and will have to ask itself whether it wants to opt for civilisation or for barbarism. A criminal prosecution of the Spanish politicians, public prosecutors, judges and policemen responsible for the human rights violations against Catalans and the Catalan people is urgently required and, unless Spain itself finally takes this into its own hands, should in the medium term be brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague or a specially established United Nations Spain Tribunal!