Catalan president Carles Puigdemont affirmed on Sunday that the jailing of political prisoners is a "symbol of the arrest of an entire country", in an address directed to the jailed Jordi Cuixart, president of the pro-independence civil group Omnium Cultural. The Catalan president - himself in exile in Germany and appearing via video screen - was speaking as part of the festival "Culture against repression" in the Catalan town of Santa Perpètua de Mogada. That's the town that Jordi Cuixart comes from, and the festival was held on his birthday.
Puigdemont congratulated Cuixart on his 43rd birthday and regretted that he couldn't be present to celebrate it with his family. "We continue fighting every day to protest your Machiavellian imprisonment", said the Catalan president.
When the democracy is in danger, as now, the culture is a safe-conduct towards the freedom.
— Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) 22 of April 2018
Once @jcuixart have been congratulated, you should today be able to celebrate it with the family. We continue fighting every day for denouncing your Machiavellian imprisonment, symbol of the kidnapping of a whole|real country pic.twitter.com/LpnF1DPPv7
In the address which those present watched on a video screen, Puigdemont highlighted the strength of culture as a "lifebelt for a democracy that is in danger". "Faced with the deterioration of rights, permanent threats and the creation of a state of fear, culture is a pass that can guide us towards freedom", he affirmed, thus underlining the importance of culture at present as an "essential element in the construction of the Catalan republic and as a way of confronting the repression".