Yellow ribbons and October 1 ballot box placed outside European Commission in symbolic protest

On Saturday night, the pro-independence grassroots organization Committee for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) in Brussels carried out a symbolic protest in front of the European Commission.

By Sunday morning, the surroundings of the official European building were covered in yellow ribbons, come to mean solidarity with the Catalan leaders who are still held in precautionary jail in Madrid: Oriol Junqueras, Joaquim Forn, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart.

The organization also placed one of the ballot boxes used for the October 1 referendum – which that day, were smuggled into polling stations despite the violent crackdown by the Spanish police – at the feet of a statue outside the EU center, as well, along with an ‘estelada,’ the red yellow and blue flag for an independent Catalan Republic. A chain of yellow ribbons adorned the statue itself. 

One of the pro-independence Catalan leaders who remains in prison since October 16, Jordi Sànchez, was until recently head of the grassroots organization the Catalan National Assembly (ANC). The group responded to the CDR sharing the action on social media by thanking them on the same platform. This follows a similar demonstration taken out by the London CDR chapter in Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus.