16/10/2020 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s General Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders in Council of Europe member states, Alexandra Louis (France, ALDE), today made the following statement:
“Three years after the detention of Jordi Cuixart, human rights defender and President of the Catalan association Omnium Cultural, who was sentenced in the trial of twelve Catalan leaders in September 2019, it is worrying that Mr Cuixart’s conditions of detention are particularly drastic. The application of the ‘flexible detention regime’ has been suspended and he remains jailed, in solitary confinement, in his cell for 23 hours out of 24.”
“One can only wonder about the length of the nine-year sentence imposed on Mr Cuixart. I therefore call on the Spanish authorities to review their decisions regarding his detention, in particular the restrictions to which he is currently subject, and to consider releasing him on parole as soon as possible.”