A huge crowd of more than 50 thousand people has gathered outside of the courthouse so support former President Mas on the day the trial begins.
Artur Mas and Ministers Ortega and Rigau, are accused of disobedience and face a ban for elected posts because they kept their electoral promise to organise a referendum about whether Catalonia should become an independent state.
The referendum could not be carried out as initially planned because of the threats from the Spanish Government. So the Catalan Government changed the format to a non binding consultation and used volunteers instead of civil servants in order to protect the people organising from retaliations from Spain.
The result was that in spite of the threats and the attempts to ridicule 2.3 million people voted, with 90% votes going for the yes and the Spanish Government feeling powerless thought someone had to be punished for this defiance and targetted Mas and Ministers Ortega and Rigau.
Today the trial begins only a few days after the Catalan Government had the go ahead from CUP to approve to budget for 2017 that will enable an official referendum to be organised by the current Catalan Government. 80% of Catalans agree as of today that a referendum must be held to solve this issue.
Even though the intent of the Spanish Government is to use the judiciary to attack and scare Catalans against going forward with the independence plans it is proving to be instead a phenomenal way of uniting everyone who believes in democracy against the illegitimate use of the State by the Spanish Government.
Catalan demands for independence are, at the end of the day, a struggle for democracy.