25/12: Everyone at home

Today, we also feel a sense of outrage directed at those who are toying with people’s time and freedom

Vicenç Villatoro
1 min

It is part of our tradition that Christmas is the time of year when everyone stays home. It’s not customary to go away, to travel, to eat out. At Christmas, everyone at home. Which means it’s a day when our thoughts turn to those who ought to be at home but it isn’t possible. And even more so when they are unable to be there for an unjust reason. Throughout the year, many families spare a thought for political prisoners, due to the belief that they have been wrongly convicted. But at Christmas, and this year in particular, we must also add the anger caused by those who, due to a combination of revenge and foolishness, have made it impossible for these individuals to return home, having been deprived of their liberty. In addition to a major outrage, the conviction that what they did was neither a sin nor a crime, this year we must also add a minor outrage: the fact that people are being kept behind bars who according to European justice should have been released a long time ago. A sense of outrage directed at those who are toying with people’s time and freedom, as if every hour and every minute of stolen freedom were worthless. On a day when everyone ought to be at home, I am reminded of what my grandmother would say with all the might of her radical agnosticism: not even God will forgive them.

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