40 MEPs support jailed leaders on hunger strike with manifesto

The EU-Catalonia dialogue platform, including some 40 MEPs from 5 different political groups, have supported the Catalan pro-independence jailed leaders on hunger strike with a manifesto.

Coinciding with the visit of the Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent in Brussels, the platform has issued a manifesto expressing "its solidarity to support the Catalan political prisoners for their struggle for freedom and the defense of human rights and shows its solidarity and its total admiration towards this peaceful act of protest."

"We call for the complete end of this anomaly in the European Union, where nine political prisoners and five exiles are deemed free citizens in all Member States but their own, Spain", the text also reads.

The EU-Catalonia dialogue platform urged for the prisoners to be released and their charges dropped, and it called on the EU institutions "to make a gesture of responsibility in favor of pushing for dialogue to find a political solution to the Catalan issue."

Talking to the press, the president of the platform, Ivo Vajgl, said the issue is "a moral question" and therefore the EU should take action.

"It is the ultimate duty of democratic Europe to listen to this call," he added.