FILE PHOTO: Jordi Turull, a Catalan separatist leader, walks with his wife Blanca Bragulat after leaving Spain's Supreme Court in Madrid where he testified for an investigation into his role in Catalonia's bid for independence, March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo

MADRID (Reuters) - Two more jailed Catalan separatist leaders awaiting trial for their role in the region’s failed bid to secede from Spain joined a hunger strike started two days ago by two of their companions to protest against their treatment by Spanish courts.

After Catalonia declared independence last year, Madrid took direct control of the region and brought charges including misuse of public funds and rebellion against Catalan leaders, nine of whom are in jail awaiting trial.

Two of the leaders in custody, Josep Rull and Joaquim Forn, released a statement saying they would join the hunger strike started on Saturday by Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Turull.

“We also voluntarily renounce food intake as of 8:00 p.m. on Monday,” the men said in a statement.

The men said they were fasting to support Sanchez and Turull’s protest against the failure of Spanish courts to process numerous appeals in relation to their cases.</s>Two more jailed Catalan separatist leaders awaiting trial for their role in the region's failed bid to secede from Spain joined a hunger strike started two days ago by two of their companions to protest against their treatment by Spanish courts. After Catalonia declared independence last year, Madrid took direct control of the region and brought charges including misuse of public funds and rebellion against Catalan leaders, nine of whom are in jail awaiting trial. Two of the leaders in custody, Josep Rull and Joaquim Forn, released a statement saying they would join the hunger strike started on Saturday by Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Turull. "We also voluntarily renounce food intake as of 8:00 p.m. on Monday," the men said in a statement. The men said they were fasting to support Sanchez and Turull's protest against the failure of Spanish courts to process numerous appeals in relation to their cases</s>Four of the Catalan leaders facing trial over last year’s failed push for regional independence have gone on a hunger strike, claiming they are being treated unfairly by the Spanish justice system.

On Saturday, Jordi Sànchez, the former head of the powerful grassroots group Catalan National Assembly, and Jordi Turull, a former Catalan government spokesman, announced that they were embarking on the strike at Lledoners prison.

The pair accuse Spain’s constitutional court of deliberately blocking their numerous appeals to prevent their cases progressing to the European Court of Human Rights.

“We ask for an impartial and diligent constitutional court, which should not impede the exercise of our rights,” they said in a statement. “We do not ask the constitutional court for any special treatment. But we do not passively accept any discrimination or unwarranted procrastination.”

On Monday two other imprisoned Catalan leaders – former infrastructure minister Josep Rull and ex-interior minister Joaquim Forn – said they were joining the hunger strike to protest against the constitutional court’s “unjust and arbitrary behaviour”.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said that while the hunger strike “was obviously not good news”, the imprisoned leaders were being treated in accordance with the law.

“I think it is important to stress that they will have a fair trial because we live in a society based on the rule of law and the judiciary is independent,” he said over the weekend.

However the Catalan president, Quim Torra, has described the Spanish judicial system’s treatment of the prisoners as “one of the worst outrages seen in Europe” in recent years.

“This dramatic and drastic measure being taken is because of what we find to be the complete violation of citizens’ rights, civil and political rights, and of respect for the legal processes of the Spanish state itself,” he said.

“It’s my view that penal law is being used for vengeance, establishing a makeshift legality in order to attack political dissidence.

Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, the head of the Omnium cultural group, have been in pre-trial detention since October 2017, while the former Catalan vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, has been in custody for more than a year.

The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who led efforts to secede from Spain, fled the country and is now in Belgium.

At the beginning of November, the attorney general of Spain’s supreme court charged Junqueras and eight ministers and senior officials with rebellion, demanding a 25-year sentence for the former vice-president and up to 17 years for the others.

Tensions in Catalonia are likely to rise again early next year when the trials begin. – Guardian</s>Two jailed Catalan separatist leaders said Monday they would join a hunger strike their colleagues have already started as they await trial over Catalonia's failed independence bid, bringing the total refusing food to four.

Josep Rull, once in charge of infrastructure in the Spanish region's separatist executive, and former regional interior minister Joaquim Forn, were all set to refuse food in Catalonia's Lledoners prison, they said in a statement.

"We announce that we are joining the peaceful protest that our colleagues, Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Turull, have already started," the statement read.

Sanchez, the former head of the influential grassroots ANC independence association, and Turull, a former regional minister, started their hunger strike on Saturday.

They accuse Spain's Constitutional Court of dragging its feet on their appeals against their situation, impeding them from going to the European Court of Human Rights.

The European court rules that a person has to have exhausted all possible appeals at home before taking his or her case to Strasbourg, where it is based.

"Neither our protest nor that of our colleagues is a hunger strike to ask for any treatment of favour or positive discrimination," Rull and Forn said in their statement.

"It is, simply, the only alternative we have here in jail to make the discrimination and violation of our fundamental rights more visible."

Spain's Supreme Court in October ordered a total of 18 former Catalan separatist leaders to stand trial over last year's declaration of independence.

Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of up to 25 years on charges of rebellion or misuse of public funds over the failed secession bid.

The sensitive trial is expected to start in early 2019 and will focus on the attempt by Catalan leaders to break away from Spain in October 2017 by staging a referendum despite a court ban and subsequently proclaiming independence.

Nine separatists in all are in pre-trial detention. The seven at Lledoners prison have been held for between eight and 13 months without trial.</s>Two jailed Catalan separatist leaders awaiting trial for their role in the region’s failed bid to secede from Spain said yesterday they were starting a hunger strike to protest over their treatment by Spanish courts.

After Catalonia declared independence last year, Madrid took direct control of the region and brought charges including misuse of public funds and rebellion against Catalan leaders, nine of whom are in jail awaiting trial.

Two of the leaders in custody - Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Turull - announced in a joint statement that they had started refusing food to protest at the failure of Spanish courts to process numerous appeals in relation to their cases.

“We are not asking the court for special treatment. But we will not passively accept discrimination or unwarranted delays,” the two men said in the statement.

Sanchez told Reuters in an interview last week that he was convinced he would not get a fair trial in Spain, but believed he and other separatist leaders would be acquitted by the European Court of Human Rights.

A Spanish government spokesperson said the jailed separatists would get a fair trial. “Only the judiciary is responsible for sentencing,” the spokesperson added.

Tensions with Madrid have cooled since last year but the Catalan government continues to advocate for a referendum on leaving Spain, something the Spanish government has said it will not accept.</s>MADRID — Two imprisoned members of the Catalonia region’s previous government have joined two secessionist colleagues in a hunger strike to protest what they say is unfair treatment by Spanish courts.

Former Catalan infrastructure minister Josep Rull and Joaquim Forn, the ex-interior minister, said in a statement Monday that Spain’s constitutional Court has blocked their appeals of being held in pre-trial custody for more than year.

They say that has prevented them taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which can only happen when all Spanish appeals are exhausted.

Five other separatist leaders face trial on sedition and other charges for their roles in an illegal secession attempt by Catalonia’s leaders last year.
Jailed Catalan independentists leaders Joaquim Forn and Josep Rull joins Sànchez and Turull in the hunger strike.