I'd say the sentencing is right because they broke the law.

15 years in prison? that's nuts. that had better be manslaughter or armed robbery or stealing zillions of pensions etc...

there is no way you can present holding a controversial referendum as worthy of a jail sentence at all, let alone 15 years. "broke the law"... i mean, crossing the street when the light is red is "breaking the law". buying weed is "breaking the law".

it is a provocative heavy-handed foolish move by the Spanish Supreme Court, that will only serve to inflame tensions, as it now provides an air of martyrdom.

it's all thoroughly unnecessary and gratuitous. it would be enough to say "well that referendum result doesn't count, sorry. nope." and you'd have a bit of protest and another "illegal" referendum every few years, but you wouldn't be feeding the popularity of the Catalonian independence movement.

it was a stupid move. hubris appears unattractive to the global lens.

mind you, I couldn't have given 2 hoots about any of this, just reporting on how it appears on the world stage.

The sentencing also includes misappropriation of public funds to pay for their personal project, wildly out of the target of that money and their mandate.

So yes: it actually was a case of stealing millions.

Secession movements have a big chance of killing a ton of people and violating the civil rights of many more, so a 15 year sentence is very plausibly appropriate, in comparison to armed robbery.

This was the the peaceful independence movement. They have not killed anyone and have no declared intention to.

That would be a great argument if it meant there was no chance of future violence. But it doesn't, so it's not.

So basically you're saying that somebody should be jailed for N years because maybe, in the future, someone else related with the same movement might use some level of violence to achieve... something we still don't know, in circumstances we still don't know? Wow.

Actually, no, but if you want to pretend I did, have at it.

You were the one talking about "future". Can you explain better what did you mean?

Well, old and nasty argument, but it was also against the law in Nazi germany to be jewish.

In other words, laws are not necessarily holy, just because they are laws.