Demonstrators holding banners reading in Catalan "freedom for the political prisoners" gather outside the Palau Generalitat during a protest in Barcelona on Nov. 3. (Manu Fernandez/AP)

Regarding the Nov. 2 The World article "Hoping for E.U. support, Catalans instead get brushoff":

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party presents the Catalan secession as a coup and the democratically elected government as separatist leaders whose president fled the country to avoid justice.

Carles Puigdemont and his ministers received a popular mandate from the voters when they won the regional elections in 2015 with a program that included a referendum for independence.

Now Mr. Rajoy wants new regional elections. I wonder whether he will prevent Catalan voters from expressing their opinion. The parties that won in 2015 were no newcomers on the political scene: Mr. Puigdemont's Catalan European Democratic Party and its predecessor have been the leading political force in Catalonia since democracy was reinstated in Spain. Ousted Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras's Republican Left of Catalonia was created in 1931 and was the party of Lluís Companys, the Catalan president murdered by Francisco Franco's regime.

A free election is unthinkable if the two principal parties are not allowed to run. Now, the highest- ­profile Catalan politicians are behind bars. Mr. Puigdemont didn't flee the country; he went to Brussels as Catalonia's elected president. The charges are politically motivated: sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.

Catalans are ready to go to the ballots once more. I ask Mr. Rajoy to allow a free election and to respect the results. And I ask the rest of the world to watch closely. It is not only Catalonia's independence that is at play but democracy itself.

Stefania Clerici, Chevy Chase