A Catalan view on how a St Andrews professor faces 30 years in a Spanish jail for 'sedition'

On Friday, a judge, recklessly playing with semantics, comparing peaceful protestors to hijackers shooting guns and calling a non-violent demonstration a 'siege' despite photographic proof to the contrary, ordered five more democratically-elected Catalan leaders into unheated Madrid jail cells on charges of violent rebellion—despite the fact that the only violence that has taken place in Catalonia over independence has come at the hands of Spanish national police, guardia civils and Unionist ultra-right demonstrators.

Tens of thousands of outraged Catalan protestors filled the streets, calmly and peacefully, ever more defiantly, ever more determined to have their say.

On Saturday, Spain renewed the European Arrest Warrents for the arrest of the exiled Catalan leaders, including President Puigdemont and Scottish-based former education minister Clara Ponsati.

Clara Ponsati

Remember that Spain had rescinded those orders when it became clear that Belgian justice would find no grounds to turn the political leaders over, and that any ruling from Belgium would hamper Spain's efforts to jail the peaceful independence activists.

But it wasn't until Sunday that Spain brought Catalonia's grievances center stage on the European theater with the detention of Mr Puigdemont at the hands of the German police. No matter that Puigdemont, or any independence activist, has ever committed any violence or incited anyone else to, he is charged with violent rebellion, because according to the judge, he knew how Spain would react to protect its unity, and thus its violence is Puigdemont's fault. While the German Constitution has articles on high treason—with respect to Germany—its Constitutional Court has also insisted that “German public authority must not assist other states in violating human dignity.”

READ MORE: Iain Macwhirter on Spain's "Assault on Democracy"

Spain insists that it is only seeking to ensure the "rule of law" bit it was only a few weeks ago that Spain's Constitutional Court overstepped its jurisdiction and imposed added restrictions on the Catalan Parliament with respect to its choice of a president that no one had asked for and which it did not have the authority to offer. It then refused to allow the next, adamantly pacifist, candidate to stand for the presidency in the Parliament—on grounds that he is in jail on those same rebellion charges—despite having allowed an actual terrorist to do so in 1987. After the Catalan Parliament suggested that Jordi Turull would be the next candidate, the Spanish judge hastily called him before a Madrid court and jailed him Friday morning. We must not forget that Madrid invited and encouraged all of these candidates to stand in the December 21 elections, perhaps in the belief that they would lose. To disqualify them for the office after they won is to reveal how little the "rule of law" really matters to them.

These are just the latest in a long series of moves by a Spanish government, Congress and courts to refuse and indeed simply ignore the demands of the Catalan people. And it gets more dangerous every day. In October, it unlawfully dissolved the Catalan Parliament, deposed its president and government, and called snap elections. Why was that unlawful?

According to Spanish (not Catalan) Constitutional scholar Javier Pérez Royo, Article 155 only permits temporary measures to force a regional government into compliance, and the Rajoy's Government used 155 for measures that are not only not temporary, but directly violate the will of the people. Catalans have used every democratic tool at their disposal to demand a change in government. That is not rebellion, it is democracy.

Reviewing different regional conflicts over the years, one has to wonder what would have happened if, instead of hunkering down into respective bunkers, and eventually firing on each other, the various parties had been forced to talk to each early on and negotiate. The Bosnian War lasted three and a half years before various world powers sat the sides down in Dayton, Ohio in 1995. The Troubles in Ireland raged from the late 1960's until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems more entrenched than ever.

Carles Puigdemont

The longer a conflict goes on, the more people are killed, the more families are turned on each other, the more rancor is generated and the more the problem builds on itself and is harder to solve.

It is true that Catalans have stubbornly insisted on having a voice on their own political future—through peaceful, massive, community activism—but it is also true that their political leaders have consistently been the only ones at the negotiating table.

Spain, Spanish leaders from both major parties, and to a large degree the Spanish populace, have consistently refused to listen to Catalan demands, refused to even consider that there is a problem. But the less they listen, the more Catalonia feels the need to be heard, and to resort to whatever measures—including separating from Spain—to have its own voice.

It is also true that Europe has been largely silent on Catalan self-determination. Even when faced with hundreds of videos showing Spanish police beating clearly non-violent voters of all ages, the European Commission insisted it was a 'domestic affair'. Europe's lackluster support for human rights is a reflection of its own deficiencies that should be remedied; by ignoring human rights violations in Spain it tarnishes Europe and emboldens autocrats in other countries.

By jailing Catalonia's political leadership on absurd, obviously false charges, Spain has painted itself into a corner of defeat. Catalonia has no incentive to back down, no faith that it can forge a credible relationship with Spain, and no hope of future within a biased, politically-motivated judiciary system.

There is no turning back. Spain's attempts (unsuccessfully to date) to provoke the Catalans into violence in order to have an excuse to squash their efforts is an awfully short-sighted and ill-fated strategy. With its heavy-handed approach, Spain has endangered its own State and is imperiling Europe as a whole.

Its European partners—not only embroiled in the Seylmar influence-peddling scandal enabled by, surprise! a high-ranking Spanish official, but also now drawn in to make court rulings in Scotland, Switzerland and now Germany—should step in before it is too late, before there is more bloodshed, before the sides have cemented their differences, while the Catalans are still willing to negotiate, and demand a binding, internationally-observed referendum on Catalan independence as the only possible democratic option to settle the question and to give the Catalan people a say on their future. Continued appeasement of Spain will only destabilize the region and enable Spain's autocratic—and pyromaniac—tendencies. We have been here before, and we should have learned the lesson: Spain won't be the only country that will burn.

Liz Castro is the former International committee chair for the grassroots independence organization, Catalan National Assembly, and the author of several books, including "What's up with Catalonia?

Liz Castro