A delegation of British MPs has called for the release of the Catalan political prisoners, after having visited Jordi Cuixart, Jordi Sànchez and Raül Romeva in Lledoners prison today. One of the group, Ronnie Cowan (SNP), told Catalan news agency ACN that, for the Scottish referendum four years ago to the day, he did the same thing for which those he visited have been in pretrial detention for months.
"I was organising crowds, talking to people, engaging with them, saying this is the conversation we have to have, but there was no point in that process where there was ever any thought of me being incarcerated in a prison for doing that," Cowan said. The MP praised the courage of the pro-independence leaders and confessed that, in their shoes, he doesn't know if he would cope. He says that meeting them and finding them "incredibly positive" is "really inspirational".
Cowan and Osian Lewis, Plaid Cymru's chief of staff in Westminster who also visited the prisoners, are part of a group from the UK on a working trip to Catalonia to learn about the situation here first hand. Gavin Newlands and Douglas Chapman are the other Scottish National Party MPs visiting, along with staff of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Catalonia.