Carme Forcadell speaks in the Catalan Parliament after Rajoy announced the suspension of Catalan autonomy, October 2017. Jordi Boixareu/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
In December 2017, Carme Forcadell received journalists in her fine wood-panelled office where photographs on the shelves told the story of the tireless commitment of the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, as she then was, to her beloved Catalonia. For years Forcadell had drawn a devoted following as president of the ANC, one of the biggest civil society organizations pushing for independence. Then, in 2015, the dream of her many supporters came true when an activist like her was elected to the highest public office. Her opponents, however, saw her as "ideologically inflexible".
Today Carme Forcadell is sitting behind a glass partition, dressed in a grey suit, and speaking rapidly into a telephone handset as if worried that the prison guard might grab it out of her hand. Mas d’Enric prison, where Forcadell has been remanded in custody awaiting trial since July, houses around 700 men and 30 women who are serving lengthy prison sentences, many for violent crime or drug offences. It is a dull, grey concrete construction. Visitors pass through a filter system, consisting of eight security gates made of steel bars, successive corridors, two buildings and a large empty courtyard, before entering the visitors' area packed with what feels like a hundred glass booths.
