ANC group calls for declaring independence and freeing jailed leaders

One of the major pro-independence civic organizations, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), is calling on the Catalan government to declare independence again and then implementing it – and this, for the group, includes freeing the leaders currently in jail.

According to El Periódico newspaper, the ANC passed a document claiming it is “naïve” and “impossible” to think that Spain will ever agree on a referendum with Catalonia, and it is “unlikely” that some international mediation results in such a vote.

Therefore, this organization, which has co-hosted the annual million-strong pro-independence demonstrations on the National Day for the past seven years, believes the government has to take the unilateral path.

For the ANC, if in six months' time it remains clear that a referendum cannot be agreed upon, the October 27 2017 declaration of independence has to be confirmed and published in the official gazette –unlike what did not happen last October. After which, in their view, the executive should ask for international recognition.

The document also includes other measures once to be implemented this is done, including freeing the jailed leaders waiting for a trial, taking control of the Catalan territory, and organizing the return of the exiled politicians.

This leaked information comes after last weekend when the ANC also asked the Catalan government to set a strategy to implement the Republic by December 21.  

On Tuesday in Brussels, the ANC also announced that it would take to the Constitutional Court the suspension of six members of the Catalan parliament. This, in order to appeal to the United Nations Human Rights Committee once the legal options have been exhausted in Spain.