The EU leadership needs to end its silence over the repression in Catalonia and prevail on Madrid to permit a new referendum, said M D Nalapat, an Indian scholar from Manipal University, in an article published in the Pakistan Observer.

A policeman tries to extinguish a barricade on fire on a highway in Barcelona, Spain, October 18, 2019. [Photo: IC]

“That is the only path to stability in Spain, for repression will only breed resentment that could explode into violence,” Nalapat wrote.

The Spanish Supreme Court a week ago sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to prison terms of between nine and 13 years for sedition and misuse of funds linked to the Catalan independence referendum on Oct. 1, 2017, which was declared illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court.

Since then, violent protests are on going in Barcelona and hundreds have been arrested.

Spanish Home Affairs Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska warned of heavy sentences of up to six years in prison for those arrested, saying the government was "going to apply the penal code with all of its strength against the violent separatism which attacks the law."

Much different than the of support of the Hong Kong riots, western governments and media have for the most part kept silent to the Catalan situation.

Gavin Newlands, a member of Scottish Parliament, said on his Twitter account that “as of 0707 still nothing on events in Catalonia last night on BBC News. But there is a piece on Hong Kong politicians shouting in Parliament.”

Nalapat commented that “there are moments when silence is shameful, and this is what is happening in the wake of the Madrid Court showing a contempt for the very European values that Brussels prides itself on.”