UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Sees It as Problematic that States don’t Follow UN Recommendations Such as the Release of Catalan Political Prisoners

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, says that is problematic if states do not follow UN recommendations in reference to the Spanish State’s failure to comply with the resolution of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions calling for the release of Catalan pro-independence political prisoners.

The annual report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the UN, released in September, already recalled that Spain had not implemented its request to release seven of the nine Catalan political prisoners: Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Cuixart, Oriol Junqueras, Quim Forn, Josep Rull, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa.

The president of the UN Group, José Antonio Guevara, also insisted on the release of those seven political prisoners in the past and asked not to divert attention from this request, which he believed was “a most important issue.”