International Marxist Tendency World Congress demands release of Catalan political prisoners

The World Congress of the IMT, meeting in Italy at the end of July, passed a unanimous resolution demanding the release of Catalan political prisoners jailed for their part in organising the independence referendum on 1 October 2017.

Over 370 delegates and visitors from all over the world (from Canada to Brazil, Sweden to Greece, Russia to Indonesia) passed the resolution, the full English text of which is as follows (CATALÀ / ESPAÑOL):

The 2018 World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency notes that:

• There are 9 Catalan political and social leaders being kept in pre-trial detention by the Spanish state as a punishment for the attempt to exercise the democratic right of self-determination through a referendum on 1 October, 2017.
• The leaders of the Catalan National Assembly, Jordi Sanchez, and Ómnium Cultural, Jordi Cuixart have been jailed since October 16, charged with rebellion for their part in the mass protests against the actions of the Spanish police on 20 September.
• The Catalan Vice-president Oriol Junqueras and Catalan Minister Joaquim Forn were jailed on 2 November. Catalan Ministers Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa, Jordi Turull and Josep Rull were jailed on 23 March, as was the Catalan parliament speaker Carme Forcadell. They are also charged with rebellion for their part in organising the democratic referendum on independence on 1 October.
• Several other Catalan politicians, including Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, have had to go into exile.
• Dozens of Catalan Republican activists have been charged for their part in mass peaceful protests against police repression and for the Catalan Republic, including the 3 October and 8 November general strikes. At least one has had to go into hiding.

This repression reveals the fundamentally undemocratic character of the Spanish regime, inherited from the Franco era through the betrayal of the so-called transition, which ensured the impunity of the crimes of the old regime, the continuation, unpurged, of the state apparatus, the reactionary Monarchy and the denial of the democratic right of self-determination.

This repression is part of a more general assault on democratic rights on the part of the Spanish regime which has seen dozens charged for crimes of opinion, rap artists sentenced to jail for their lyrics, Basque youth condemned to lengthy jail sentences for a bar brawl, puppeteers charged with apology of terrorism, an actor has been charged for offending God, etc.

The Catalan struggle for a democratic Republic has starkly revealed that in Spain the exercise of the democratic right of self-determination is a revolutionary task. It has also revealed that the Catalan bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalist politicians which led the movement are unable and unwilling to use the necessary revolutionary means to carry it to victory. It has also exposed the bankruptcy of the leaders of the Left in Spain which at the crucial moment retreated into crass Spanish nationalism instead of defending the democratic rights of the Catalan people.

• We demand the immediate release of the Catalan political prisoners and all others jailed for their political opinions in the Spanish state. We demand the dropping of all charges against those who have been forced into exile. We demand the repeal of the Gag Law (Ley Mordaza).
• We stand by the democratic right of self-determination of the Catalan people and the other peoples of the Spanish State.
• We commit ourselves to participate in the broadest international solidarity campaign with those prosecuted by the Spanish state.
• The struggle for a Catalan Republic can only succeed if it is carried out by revolutionary means, linking the struggle for the democratic rights to the struggle against capitalism. The Candidatures d’Unitat Popular (CUP) and the Committees for the Defence of the Republic should put themselves at the forefront of this struggle.
• The struggle for the democratic rights of Catalonia questions the foundations of the Spanish 1978 regime. Workers across the Spanish State should stand in solidarity with it as part of their own struggle against the same regime.

For a Catalan Socialist Republic. For a Socialist Federation of Free Iberian Peoples.