On 22 June 2021, Spanish President Pablo Sánchez granted a partial pardon to nine political prisoners from Catalonia through the Spanish Council of Ministers, due to the considerable pressure on Spain resulting from the votes of the competent body of the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 21 June 2021.
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/aproven-indults-presos-politics/
The nine political prisoners are to be released from prison on 23 June 2021 at 12 noon.
Although they are to be released from further imprisonment, they will still not be allowed to hold political office and, in the event of a new conviction, will still have to serve their now suspended remaining sentences.
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/indults-condicionats-presos-politics/
This amounts to a de facto ban on political activity. How great must be Spain's fear of these upright Catalans who, without guilt, have had to spend years in Spanish prisons on behalf of their nation! Neither has Spain so far withdrawn the national and European arrest warrants against the three Catalan MEPs, who once again enjoy parliamentary immunity thanks to an urgent decision by the European Court of Justice, nor is it making the slightest effort to do so, to rehabilitate the more than three thousand Catalans persecuted by the Spanish judiciary and to exempt them from further persecution and, on the contrary, to initiate criminal investigations against the Spanish prosecutors and judges responsible for the arbitrary detention of the Catalan political prisoners, as the competent body of the United Nations Human Rights Council has already demanded on several occasions.
United Nations
Human Rights:
Office of the High Commissioner:
Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its 84th session:
Opinion 6/2019 (Spain):
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/Opinions/Session84/A_HRC_WGAD_2019_6.pdf (Advance Edited Version)
Opinion 12/2019 (Spain):
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Detention/Opinions/Session84/A_HRC_WGAD_2019_12%20ADVANCE%20EDITED%20VERSION.pdf (Advance Edited Version)
Large parts of the Spanish and also European press do not inform their readers correctly about the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and its connection with the pardons of the nine Spanish political prisoners.
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/premsa-internacional-indults-relat-pedro-sanchez/
Meanwhile, international protest against the politically motivated legal persecution of a Catalan former Harvard professor continues to grow. Thirty-three Nobel laureates have now expressed solidarity with Prof. Dr. Andreu Mas-Colell and appealed to Spain to refrain from further persecution and de facto economic 'destruction' of the internationally renowned scholar.
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/comissio-economia-catalana-collegi-economistes-mas-colell/
The neo-fascist Spanish party Vox, which acted as prosecutor in the trial against the Catalan independence supporters, has already announced that it will legally challenge the pardons decided on 22. 6. 2021 and have them revoked. The probability that the extreme right-wing party will succeed in this is very high. None other than Carlos Lesmes Serrano, the acting president of the Supreme Court and also acting president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), has already spoken out clearly against the pardons of the nine Catalans, and the competent chamber of the Supreme Court, which will rule on Vox's request to annul the pardons includes a close friend and confidant of Lesmes, as well as the former chairman of the Catalan Electoral Commission (JEC), under whose chairmanship a series of measures were taken between 2017 and 2020 that were clearly politically motivated and directed against the Catalan independence movement. It can thus be expected in all likelihood that the Supreme Court will declare the pardons decided on 22 June 2021 ‘arbitrary’ and annul them. The critocrats of the Supreme Court, who embody Spain's ‘deep state’, are unlikely to let the current Spanish government take the sceptre from their hands.
In response to the pardons, Catalan President Pere Aragonès (Esquerra Republicana) called for another referendum by the Catalan people on Catalan independence, this time coordinated with the Spanish state.
https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/aragones-es-lhora-dun-referendum-acordat/
When will the people of Europe realise what the Catalan people have had to endure for generations, when will they no longer tolerate Spain's disregard for human rights, when will they join the majority of the Catalan people in shouting «Visca Catalunya lliure!» — ‘Long live free Catalonia!’?
https://www.buchkomplizen.de/blog/politik/spanien-begnadigt-katalanen-nach-kritik-vom-europarat/