Rally in Spain denounces potential pardons for Catalan separatists

Indications growing that jailed Catalan nationalists will be released

People gather for the rally against a possible pardon for imprisoned Catalan pro-independent leaders, in Plaza de Colon square, Madrid. EPA

Conservative People's Party members Jose Luis Martinez Almeida, leader Pablo Casado, and Isabel Ayuso, Madrid's regional President, followed by supporters march to Plaza de Colon square. EPA

Estimates of the turnout ranged from 25,000 to 126,000, with many protesters waving red and yellow Spanish flags. EPA

A demonstrator holds a banner reading 'Resign Sanchez' during the rally. EPA

A demonstrator wearing a Spanish national flag attends the rally. EPA

Spanish conservative People's Party member Isabel Diaz Ayuso delivers a speech shortly before the march to Plaza de Colon square. EPA

Several demonstrators hold a Spanish flag with the slogan 'No to Pardon for Participants in the Coup. Social Defense' written across it. EPA

Conservative People's Party members Jose Luis Martinez Almeida, Pablo Casado, and Isabel Ayuso applaud shortly before the march. EPA

The Spanish right staged a rally in Madrid to denounce potential pardons for jailed Catalan separatists.

Indications are growing that the Spanish government will offer clemency to the 12 politicians convicted over Catalonia's failed independence bid in 2017.

The proposed gesture has divided Spain and revived the controversy over Catalan separatism.

In Spain’s capital city, tens of thousands of people on Sunday joined the demonstration attended by leaders of the conservative People's Party and far-right Vox movement.

Estimates of the turnout ranged from 25,000 to 126,000, with many protesters waving red and yellow Spanish flags.

It turns up the pressure on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has yet to sign off any pardons.

“I understand that there are citizens who are reluctant about the possibility of granting pardons to the Catalan prisoners,” said Mr Sanchez during a visit to Argentina last week.

“But I ask for your trust … Spanish society has to move from a bad past to a better future and that also implies magnanimity.”

Sanchez under fire 

Mr Sanchez's critics on the right accuse him of trading the pardons for votes from Catalan nationalists in the Spanish parliament.

Votes from Catalan party ERC could be key to passing a national budget next year that would determine how Spain spends its post-pandemic recovery fund.

"We are not going to permit Sanchez’s attack on the judiciary, on the sovereignty, national unity and equality of the Spanish people in exchange for a handful of votes,” People's Party leader Pablo Casado said.

"Sanchez is planning pardons to legitimise an ongoing crime ... a historic error that won't solve anything, only to keep his government from going under."

Mr Sanchez faces additional criticism from his own Socialist camp, where the pardons are seen as a political gamble.

About 63 per cent of Spaniards oppose granting the pardons while 25 per cent are in favour, a poll published on Sunday showed.

Spain’s Supreme Court opposed the pardons in a recent non-binding opinion in which it said the sentences for sedition and other crimes were appropriate.

The convicted politicians had not shown “the slightest evidence or faintest hint of contrition", it said.

The separatists held an unauthorised referendum in 2017 and issued a declaration of independence that was rejected by Madrid.

In 2019, the court sentenced nine separatist leaders to between nine and 13 years in jail on sedition charges.

Three others were convicted of disobedience but not jailed.

One of the prisoners, former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras, had a letter published in a Catalan newspaper last week in which he recognised that the breakaway was "not considered fully legitimate" by many people.

The letter was seen as an attempt to break with Catalan hardliners and pave the way for a potential pardon.

In the letter, Mr Junqueras called for a future referendum approved by the Spanish government rather than another wildcat vote like in 2017.

He gave the example of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, which was authorised by the UK government.

Other separatists, such as former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, who fled Spain after the 2017 crisis, have not given up on a unilateral schism.

Spain’s government remains firm in its position not to concede a referendum.