Assemblea and the UNPO denounce Spain’s ongoing criminalization of Catalonia’s self-determination movement before the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) have sent a joint submission denouncing the lack of respect for the rule of law and human rights protections when it comes to Catalan people. The report has been sent to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as part of the fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Kingdom of Spain, taking place in 2025.

The submission criticises the systemic lack of judicial independence and its politization, which has eroded the right to fair trial and equality. Despite the passing of the Amnesty Law last May, Spanish judges continue apply it unevenly, relying on “a distorted interpretation of the legislation“. Concerning, it has also been reported that “official internal communication channels of the Spanish Judiciary Authority were used to instruct Spanish judges on how to obstruct its implementation”. Despite the fact that the Amnesty Law excludes cases of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment, it has been applied to 51 Spanish policemen accused of disproportionate police violence against peaceful protesters during the 2017 independence referendum.

Despite the peaceful nature of the Catalan pro-independence movement, Spanish authorities have falsely accused activists of violence, labelling them as terrorists, “with the purpose of criminalizing the right to protest, creating a chilling effect that threatens the right to freedom of assembly and of association”. The report shares the Judas Operation against 12 activists from non-violent activist platforms known as the Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), who were held in pre-trial detention for four months in 2019. Their case is still pending, as the judge in charge refused to apply the Amnesty Law to them, and sent a prejudicial question to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Other CDR activists were also arbitrarily accused of terrorism and ultimately acquitted, with their cases not leading to any convictions.

The ANC-UNPO submission also describes abuses on the right to privacy –with the use of illegal espionage tools against the Catalan movement, the targeting of Catalan institutions and elected representatives that infringes the right to public participation, and abuses on the right to equality and freedom from discrimination, and the right to language and culture.

The report remarks the constant undermining and deterioration of the status of the Catalan language in education, especially since the 2015 Spanish Supreme Court ruling that stated that 25% of subjects taught in Catalan schools must also be taught in Spanish. The ruling “represented a major institutional obstacle to the implementation of the immersion model system in Catalan schools”. This also alerted the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, who recently published their Sixth Evaluation Report on Spain, noting that several judicial upheld by the Spanish Supreme Court “are not compatible with the undertakings ratified by Spain under the Charter”.

The collaboration between the ANC and the UNPO started in 2018 and has been very successful. It has led to the publication of the report Tools of Repression as well as the joint complaint to the UN Special Rapporteurs in 2022 concerning Spain’s use of Pegasus to target ANC members, as well as a complaint about Spain’s abuse of anti-terrorism charges targeting Catalans, last August. Both organisations also submitted a joint report for Spain’s 2020 Universal Periodical Review.

The UPR is a mechanism designed to monitor how UN member states implement the Treaties they are subject to in terms of Human Rights, with the goal to address the concerns and prompt, support, promote and protect human rights in every country.