JORDI Cuixart, president of the grassroots group Omnium Cultural, has said people’s right to vote is an exercise of “collective dignity”, as the trial of Catalan independence leaders entered its third week in Spain’s Supreme Court.

Cuixart, who has been in pre-trial detention for almost 500 days, said that when he first made a declaration to examining judge Pablo Llarena, he said his priority was to get out of jail.

But yesterday he said that did not apply now: “My priority is no longer to get out of jail, it is to denounce the lack of freedoms in Spain.”

Cuixart said he had expressed his “deep pacifist convictions” to Llarena and argued that a demonstration he and Jordi Sanchez led at the economy ministry a month before the poll was an expression of society’s opinion. That protest was a response to raids on official buildings by Spanish police trying to halt the organisation of the indyref.

He said the demonstration was “the spontaneous reaction of the people”.

“The right to strike is won by strike, the right to manifestation is won manifesting and in Catalonia the right to vote, voting,” he said. “What we did on October 1 [holding the referendum] was an exercise of collective dignity.

“We will not surrender the exercise of fundamental rights.

“Democratic values are above the rule of law. It is an obligation of citizens to defend them.”

Prosecutor Jamie Moreno pressed Cuixart several times on alleged violence outside a school, but he responded that the only violence came from the police, prompting an intervention by the court president Manual Marchena, to which Cuixart replied: “It is that the fiscal gentleman does not like my answers.”

Carme Forcadell, the former speaker of the Catalan Parliament, revealed yesterday that she has filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights over her “preventative detention” in connection with the indyref. Forcadell, who also gave evidence yesterday, has been in prison since last March and submitted her appeal two weeks ago, but it was ruled inadmissible because she had not exhausted all avenues open to her under Spain’s legal system.

Meanwhile, a coalition of Spanish right-wing parties – People’s (PP), Citizens and far-right Vox – would fall short of a parliamentary majority, according to an opinion poll ahead of the April 28 election. The Socialists (PSOE) would need support from others, including smaller pro-indy parties – for a majority, the poll by GAD3 for the ABC newspaper showed.