Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez are the leaders of Òmnium Cultural and Catalan National Assembly (ANC), the two main pro-independence Catalan civil society organisations. On 16 October, Cuixart and Sànchez were sent to prison on charges of sedition, despite Amnesty International or 109 Spanish jurists denounce the disproportion of the accusations of rebellion and sedition to exercise fundamental rights.

A month later, on 2 November, Spanish National Court ordered the unconditional imprisonment of the Catalan government’s Vice President Oriol Junqueras and minister Joaquim Forn. A few months later, on 23 March, Supreme Court judge, Pablo Llarena, decided to send Raül Romeva, Carme Forcadell, Dolors Bassa, Jordi Turull and Josep Rull into pretrial detention without bail.

Cuixart, Sànchez and Junqueras have appealed to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) because governments cannot repress political dissent through arbitrary detention. + Information

Spanish government still holds 9 Catalan political prisoners violating their right to freedom of association and expression, political opinion and participation in public life, and fair trial rights
They have being discriminated because of their advocacy for the rights of the Catalan people to self-determination