prison

Candlelit demonstration in Catalonia's capital and several other marches in the country's main cities

Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart will already sleep in jail tonight

The new school term opens its doors to 1,562,780 students with two innovative projects

The closure of La Model ends one of the darkest chapters in the history of Catalonia and Spain

Catalonia’s oldest prison, ‘Model’, will finally close its doors this summer, the Catalan Ministry for Justice announced on Monday. The inmates, currently more than 900, will be first relocated to Brians 1 prison, about 40 kilometres south of Barcelona and Mas Enric, in the Tarragona region. “Not closing the prison would have implied 25 MEUR worth of repairs”, Catalan Minister for Justice, Carles Bundó, explained. However, closing ‘Model’ doesn’t only respond to the need for reforms but to a historic vindication from both neighbours and associations. Since its opening in 1904, the prison has been the scene of almost 1,000 executions and is regarded as a symbol of the darkest episodes in Spain’s history. Once the facility is finally emptied Barcelona City Council will put a reform plan into effect to reform and give a new function to this historic building located in the centre of the city.

Palma de Mallorca’s court sentenced Philip VI’s brother-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, for allegedly obtaining no-bid contracts from regional governments in the so-called ‘Nóos Case’. On the other hand, his wife, the sister of Spain’s King, Cristina de Borbón, has been acquitted of tax fraud complicity. However, she will have to pay a 265,000-euros fine for her role in the case. Former president of the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas, who had held 50% of the shares of the company ‘Nóos’, has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison while Urdangarin’s partner in the company will have to face an 8-year prison sentence. The trial, which generated huge attention from the media, saw a member of the Royal Family brought to court for the first time ever.  

FC Barcelona’s Player, Lionel Messi, and his father Jorge have been sentenced to 21 months in prison after Barcelona’s High Court found them guilty of three counts of tax evasion. The court also ordered the football star to pay a fine of more than 2 MEUR and his father to pay 1.5MEUR. However, as the sentence is under two years, it is unlikely that Messi and his father end up in prison, especially ifthere is no prior criminal report. Moreover, the Court’s decision is not definitive and can still be appealed before Spain's Supreme Court. Messi and his father are accused of having moved 4.1m EUR earned from the player’s image rights to tax havens between 2007 and 2009.  

Catalan civil society association Òmnium Cultural will organise a massive event this Friday to pay tribute to Francoism's forgotten victims and condemn the crimes committed during Franco's dictatorship. The homage coincides with the 40^th anniversary of General Francisco Franco's death, who died in bed afterwinning the Spanish Civil War, with the aid of Hitler and Mussolini, and leading a regime of terror that lasted 36 years. Different to what happened in Germany or Italy after their fascist regimes, Spain started a transition period towards democracy but many crimes were left unpunished. The homage will take place in Barcelona's Model prison, since it was "a symbol of repression and torture" during Francoism, stated Òmnium's president, Quim Torra. Òmnium has also written a document which "condemns the dictatorship" and urges for the "victims' reparation".