Social Europe: The Catalan pardons: what do they mean?

 The talk of the town across Spanish media for the past week has been the pardoning of the Catalan political prisoners jailed following the unofficial referendum on independence in October 2017. Despite heavy opposition from Spain’s Supreme Court and the conservative opposition party, the Partido Popular (PP), the socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, confirmed the pardons at Barcelona’s Liceu Theatre, striving to promote concord rather than revenge.[...]

Opposition to the pardons has come from two very different standpoints. The PP, the far-right Vox and the Spanish-nationalist Ciudadanos—as well as the Spanish Supreme Court— claim that the political prisoners should not have been pardoned: their actions were unconstitutional, they included ‘sedition’ and misuse of public funds, and the prisoners showed no signs of remorse.[....]

The exiled Junts leader and 130th president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, criticised the Spanish state for releasing the prisoners over three years late and said no one should be ‘sold’ that the pardon would solve the political problem. The party vice-president, Elsa Artadi, also affirmed this would not be a ‘turning point’ in the Catalan conflict, claiming the Spanish government was seeking to mask its own violations of rights against the independence movement. [...]

On Monday of last week, a resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe urged that the prisoners be released and that Spain ‘consider dropping extradition proceedings against Catalan politicians living abroad’. An aggressive response followed from the judiciary in Spain, leading some to ask: are the pardons a step towards peace, or a red herring in the face of increasing international condemnation of the Spanish judiciary?

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Politico: Russia may crash out of Council of Europe, says rights chief

In 2014, Russia’s voting rights in the Council of Europe were revoked after the illegal annexation of Crimea. If things don’t change, the election of a raft of new judges and top officials during the next two years would take place without Russian votes.

Moscow could crash out of the group if Russia keeps being excluded from the election of key personnel — destroying a judicial bridge that has linked Europe to Russia since Moscow joined the Council in 1996. [...]

“We have to think of the following: Will Europe be better off, safer, with Russia on its own, without being part of the judicial system of Europe?” he said. “For me this is a very urgent question.”

Jagland, who had just come out of his first sit-down meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, said the Russia issue was part of a broader problem of countries that question human rights rulings. [...]

A crackdown against suspected plotters in an aborted coup led to thousands of people being jailed or losing their jobs. While many were based on solid grounds — the coup attempt was “very brutal,” Jagland said — there are serious concerns that Turkey had “cast its net too wide.”

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Political Critique: The Victim’s of Russia’s Ultra-Conservatism Are the Russian People Themselves

Furthermore, this posturing plays to an image the Kremlin projects to audiences at home and abroad. On the global stage, this shows Russia turning its back on international human rights norms. On the domestic front, it plays into a narrative of so-called “traditional values.” [...]

Best known for being the lead author of the 2014 anti-gay law against so-called “gay propaganda”, Mizulina has also placed herself in the spotlight with such outlandish proposals as prohibiting women access to university education prior to giving birth and reducing access to contraception. Mizulina was also the lead author of the law banning the adoption of Russian children by American parents. This was Russia’s retaliation to US sanctions imposed against Russian officials involved in the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in prison after attempting to expose high-level government-sanctioned fraud. [...]

Conservative estimates establish that within the global pandemic of violence against women, 12-15% of women suffer from domestic violence. This translates into at least 8.5 million women across Russia who experience domestic violence. [...]

Given the gravity of this development, on 16 January 2017, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbøjrn Jagland addressed a letter directly to the heads of both chambers of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council and the State Duma. In an unusual move reserved for the most serious and urgent situations, the Secretary General criticised the proposed legal amendment after it had passed the Duma’s first reading, calling it a “sign of regression.”

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