"A Nation, Catalan Countries! A Language, Catalan!" - Mural in Vilassar de Mar, El Maresme, Catalonia (by 1997 / Wikimedia Commons) "They have been beaten for trying to hold a referendum, their parliament has been dissolved and their leaders have either fled or been put in prison, but the Catalan independence supporters are not relenting," wrote The Independent on December 8 about Catalan separatists . The Catalan independence movement has been portrayed by many international media outlets as a fight for freedom, while the intervention of the Spanish state to block the October 1st independence referendum is regarded as oppressive and undemocratic. International media often offer a platform for Catalan separatists to explain their cause from their own perspective. For instance on December 3 Politico Europe published an op-ed by Oriol Junqueras, the leader of the Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC) and for