Sir, – In defending the jailing of the Catalan independence leaders, the Spanish ambassador Ildefonso Castro writes that, "No government in the world recognised the outcome of the referendum nor the referendum itself", and the independence movement "failed to gain internal support and international recognition" (Letters, October 16th).
Surely if that’s the case, jailing people for 12 years for engaging in such a woefully ineffective and inconsequential movement seems completely disproportionate. – Yours, etc,
RONAN
Ó FATHAIGH,
READ SOME MORE
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.