The deposed Catalan parliament speaker and five lawmakers have been called by Spain's Supreme Court to answer charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement. Spain is cracking down hard on separatist leaders.
Image: Reuters/S. Perez
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Catalonia's former president of the chamber Carme Forcadell and five lawmakers stand accused of a "concerted strategy to declare independence" in violation of the constitution. The six are accused of rebellion, sedition and misappropriation of public funds.
Forcadell was the first of the six to testify at the Supreme Court on Thursday. Former vice presidents Lluis Corominas, Lluis Guino and Anna Simo, as well as former secretaries Ramona Barrufet and Joan Josep Nuet were to follow. By Thursday afternoon, four of the lawmakers had finished answering questions, according to a court spokeswoman while the remaining two were to be questioned later in the day.
The Supreme Court last week allowed the case for the six to be postponed until Thursday to allow time to prepare for the hearing. The charges the parliamentarians face are the same as those for which eight deposed Catalan ministers are currently being held in jail awaiting trial.
The Supreme Court also said on Thursday it had decided to take over cases relating to the banned
Catalan independence referendum from the Catalan High Court, according to Reuters.
Eight ministers in jail
Eight ministers were sent to prison without bail last week while awaiting their trial after their hearing at Spain's National Court for their role in the October independence referendum. That court had not allowed a postponement and continued the hearings despite the short notice.
Deposed Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and four of his former ministers have remained in Belgium, where they went after the Spanish government last week took over powers from Catalonia's regional government and called an election for December 21.
The Catalonia independence drive has plunged Spain into a deep political crisis and threatened stability in the EU's fifth largest economy.
The independence referendum passed by a wide margin, but the vote split Catalans. Turnout was only 43 percent and Spain's top court ruled it illegal.
New elections in Catalonia will be held next month and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday urged "massive participation" in the vote. A high turnout could deal a blow to separatist parties.
In a sign of cracks in the pro-independence camp, Puigdemont's Democratic Catalan Party and its separatist allies have failed to unite around a leading candidate for the December vote.
Puigdemont was selected by his party last week to head its ticket, even if he has to run the campaign from Belgium.
Separatist parties won a slight majority of seats in the Catalan parliament in 2015, but they received fewer than half the votes.
Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain's many nationalities
With a strong identity of its own, Catalonia is now at the center of a tug-of-war between the central government and autonomous authorities. To differing degrees, various parts of Spain have strong national self-images.
Image: Reuters/J. Nazca
A Roman province
The Romans had several provinces with Hispania in their names on the Iberian Peninsula. Modern Spain also encompasses such wide cultural diversity that the Spanish themselves speak of Las Espanas (The Spains). The country in its present form was never united under a single ruler until after the 1702-14 War of the Spanish Succession.
Image: picture-alliance/Prisma Archivo
A nation of regions
Spanish nationalism is strong in many regions, with former kingdoms such as Aragon largely content to be recognized as part of the Spanish nation-state. Asturias has its own language, but takes pride in its role as the birthplace of the Reconquista, or the taking back of Iberia from the Moors. Spanish nationalism was evident in recent years in Madrid in response to Catalonia's referendum.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Soriano
Bloodied fingers
Catalonia has long battled for independence. Its flag, the Senyera, is very similar to that of Aragon, to which it once belonged. The design is fabled to represent four bloodied fingers of Count Wilfred the Hairy being passed over a gold shield. Catalans were fairly happy with their situation until a court struck down the region's statute of autonomy in 2006 and support for independence grew.
Image: picture-alliance/Zumapress/M. Oesterle
No great appetite
Valencianismo, or Valencian nationalism, sprang out of the Renaixenca, an early-19th-century rebirth of the Catalan language, of which Valencian is just one variant. However, nationalist sentiment is not widespread in the region, which is home to Spain's Tomatina tomato-throwing festival. The Valencian Nationalist Bloc usually gets about 4 percent of the vote for the autonomous parliament.
Image: picture-alliance/Gtresonline
Other Catalan territories
The Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera — all speak variants of Catalan. Though there is a greater nationalist feeling on the islands than in Valencia, it is still more subdued than in Catalonia. Meanwhile, La Franja, a strip of Catalan-speaking land in Aragon, was split by the independence referendum, though most residents do not advocate self-determination for themselves.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Seeger
The Basque Country
Because of terror attacks by the ETA militant group, Basque separatists used to make the headlines far more often than Catalonia's independence movement. Separatists consider the Basque Country in France and Spain and the region of Navarre to be one nation. About a third of people want full independence, but most want more autonomy. A referendum proposed in 2008 was ruled illegal.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/R. Rivas
The Galician cause
Although it was the birthplace of the centralist dictator Francisco Franco, Galicia has the strongest tradition of separatism after Catalonia and the Basque Country. Even Spain's mainstream national parties display a streak of Galicianism in the region. Perhaps as a result, starkly nationalist parties receive a lower share of the regional vote.
The Arabic name al-Andalus originally refers to the areas of the Iberian Peninsula that were under Moorish rule for 760 years. As Christians reconquered territories, the area known as Andalusia shrank southwards. Most Andalusians voted for autonomy after Franco died in 1975, but there is little appetite for full independence.
