Jordi Cuixart to temporarily move to Switzerland to denounce Spanish repression

Catalan pro-independence activist Jordi Cuixart announced on Monday night his will to temporarily move to Switzerland. The former Òmnium Cultural president was imprisoned for the 2017 self-determination vote and will now denounce Spanish repression worldwide.

Cuixart will also condemn the Catalangate espionage scandal, in which 80 pro-independence figures’ phones were targeted using Pegasus spyware. Some of these victims included all Catalan presidents since 2010 and some of the attacks were greenlighted by a Spanish Court.

After leaving the president position, Cuixart will now undertake the Òmnium Civil Rights Europe director role during his time abroad, coinciding with professional reasons.

Cuixart was been at the helm of the 61-year-old organization since 2015, holding on to the position while imprisoned from October 2017 to June 2021 for sedition for the referendum deemed illegal by Spain. 

Jailed activist

Of the 9 people put behind bars for the 2017 vote, it is the imprisonment of Cuixart – an activist and not a politician – that was seen as one of the most troubling by sympathizers and certain observers.

On September 20, 2017, Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez – who at the time presided over the Catalan National Assembly group and is now a member of the Junts per Catalunya Party – famously stood atop a vandalized Spanish police vehicle to tell the protesters who had gathered outside the Catalan economy department to go home.

Cuixart and Sànchez were accused of instigating the demonstrators and preventing Spanish police officers from being able to leave the building where they were carrying out a raid. 

After being held in pre-trial detention for two years, he was sentenced to 9 years behind bars in a decision that was denounced by the Council of Europe and other rights groups such as Amnesty International or Front Line Defenders for threatening freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.