Our declaration in English:
On Thursday 29th March, during the activities organized by the pickets of the general strike in the area of the University of Barcelona, the Catalan police arrested two students, Isma and Dani, members of the students union AEP-Associació d’Estudiants Progressistes (Progressive Students Association). In total, that morning were arrested and taken to the police station in Les Corts, over thirty people.
A large group of family and friends moved to the City of Justice (Ministry of Justice's central offices in Barcelona) and waited for their departure, to welcome them and show their support, because everything pointed that after testifying, all the detainees would be released.
Unfortunately, at 10pm, the lawyers reported that the Ministerio Fiscal in Madrid asked preventive imprisonment for all detainees, and at 22pm they finally confirmed that Isma, Dani and a third young person, Javi, would be transferred to different prisons under provisional imprisonment and without bail.
They are accused of public disorder, damage to public property and injury to law enforcement, among others, and the reasons given to justify their provisional imprisonment are the ensurance of their availability to the court and the alleged danger of recidivism.
We, the organizations that ask for the freedom of the young arrested students, state:
- That they are young people organized in legitimate and necessary associations and involved in their respective communities where they struggle for the common good.
- That in a democratic system, the presumption of innocence must be respected.
- That the decision to imprison them is misplaced and exaggerated as there is no risk of escape and they have no criminal records.
For these reasons, we support the petition of review of the case that was presented in their Defense on Monday 2nd April, we demand the immediate release of the detainees and we ask the youth of the world to express their solidarity with the Catalan students.
