Former MP in Geneva justifies choosing “path of exile”

Anna Gabriel, the former MP for the pro-independence CUP party who moved to Switzerland after claiming she could not get a fair trial in Spain, sat next to deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont at an event in the HQ of the United Nations in Geneva on Monday. Both influential figures in the Catalan independence movement, Puigdemont and Gabriel were attending the debate, ‘The regression of human rights in Spain’.

After the event, Gabriel said she had chosen “the path of exile” to “denounce the infringement of civil and political rights” by the Spanish authorities. Gabriel also warned the European Union about “closing its eyes” to the political situation in Catalonia. "If these violations of civil and political rights are happening in a member state of the European Union, what might happen and be allowed to happen in other latitudes?” asked Gabriel.