Catalonia, Spain flags at Barcelona event

People carry giant flags of Catalonia and Spain in Barcelona on Thursday as they celebrate a holiday known as “Dia de la Hispanidad” or Spain’s National Day. The celebrations come amid one of the Spain’s biggest crises ever as its powerful northeastern region of Catalonia threatens independence.

Madrid, Oct 12: Footage from a five-year-old miners’ strike, a paralysed young boy and woman’s broken fingers: images swarming Spanish social media during the Catalonia independence crisis have one thing in common. They all are fake news. Misleading news reports, often about violence involving police, and partisan media coverage have fueled tensions as each side seeks to influence the outcome of Spain’s toxic political crisis.

One photo of a woman whose fingers were allegedly broken by the police to stop her from voting during a banned independence referendum in Catalonia on October 1 was widely distributed on social media.

She later told Catalan television that doctors had only diagnosed swollen cartilage in her hand.

Other circulated reports said that a policeman sent to Catalonia to block the plebiscite had died while on assignment, and that a sixyear-old boy had been paralysed by the police. All were false. — AFP