Work stoppages held across Catalonia in protest of judicial process against dismissed Catalan officials

At noon across Catalonia, workers took part in a work stoppage in order to protest the judicial process against members of the dismissed Catalan government and parliamentary bureau, who had been summoned to appear in court on Thursday morning in Madrid.

They are accused of the crimes of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds by Spain’s attorney general, and face up to 30 years in prison.

This is the third work stoppage since the October 1 referendum, which brought the crisis between Catalonia and Spain to new levels. The first one, a day after people across Catalonia took to the ballots to cast their votes, was to protest against Spanish violence on the referendum day, preventing many people from voting and injuring nearly 1000.

On October 17 a second work stoppage was called. This time to speak out against the imprisonment of Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, presidents of Omnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly respectively. Each time the work stoppages took place at midday and lasted for 15 minutes, as people concentrate in the streets in a symbolic gesture of indignity.