SPAIN has again clamped down on the Catalan independence movement with its national court sending seven activists to prison without bail.

They were among nine people arrested in Catalonia on Monday when more than 500 Spanish Civil Guard officers made a series of raids. All were said to be members of local CDR (Committee for the Defence of the Republic) groups – a network of activists set up ahead of the independence referendum in 2017.

They faced charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, possessing explosives and conspiring to cause criminal damage.

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Judge Manuel García Castellón said evidence suggested that the accused belonged to a “hierarchical organisation aiming to establish a Catalan republic by all means, including violent”.

Yet in the years since Spanish courts revoked the Catalan statute, the independence movement has not committed a single act of violence. Castellón justified prison on the “severity of the alleged crimes”, the ability of the accused to destroy evidence and risk of flight and repeat offences.

There was speculation last night that the other two accused were Spanish agents who had infiltrated the CDR after they sacked the collective’s lawyers and asked for lawyers from Madrid, where the court is based.

Last night, they were free.

Quim Torra, the Catalan president, said: “Repression is the only answer of the Spanish state.

They are trying to build a story of violence before the sentences [of the political prisoners who have been on trial]. They will not succeed.

“The independent movement is and will always be pacific.”