Hundreds Demanded Freedom for Puigdemont at a Procession in Berlin

DW - An event organizer had critical words for both Germany and Spain when it came to the imprisonment of Catalonia's ex-president. Meanwhile, politicians from Germany's The Left party paid Puigdemont an Easter prison visit.

Hundreds of Catalan independence supporters braved near-freezing temperatures and gray drizzle on Sunday to march through the streets of Berlin and demand that Germany release the imprisoned ex-president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, rather than extradite him to Spain.

The protesters, many waving the yellow, red and blue flag of the Catalan separatist movement, also criticized the Spanish government's handling of the crisis, which recently drew the German judicial system into the fray.

The Berlin demonstration was organized by the German branch of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC-DE), a civil organization advocating for an independent Catalonia. It came six months to the day after a contested independence referendum in Catalonia that the Spanish government had declared unconstitutional and sought to prevent, in part through police force.

"The motto today was 'Free Puigdemont,'" Ferran Cornella, the ANC-DE's secretary, told DW in a phone interview.

It was emblazoned across banners and signs carried by the protesters as they demanded that Puigdemont, a key politician behind the region's independence drive, be freed from a German prison in Schleswig-Holstein. German authorities detained the politician on the basis of a European arrest warrant for rebellion and embezzlement, after he drove into the country one week ago.

After Puigdemont's arrest, pro-independence Catalans also took to the streets of Barcelona to demand his release.

"We want Germany to free our president. He was in multiple European...