Pro-independence protesters in Catalonia block roads, railway line

BARCELONA: Pro-independence protesters obstructed major roads and a high-speed railway line in Spain’s Catalonia region yesterday, one year after a banned referendum on secession marred by police violence. “Everything began on October 1 and everything goes back to October 1,” the region’s separatist president Quim Torra said in a ceremony in Sant Julia de Ramis in northern Catalonia on a stage next to a large black and white banner that read “No forgetting, no forgiving.”

Some 10 kilometres (six miles) away in Girona, hundreds of activists, many covering their faces with scarves, occupied high-speed railway tracks for around three hours, blocking services linking Figueres, Girona and Barcelona, Spain’s state-owned rail operator Renfe said. Central streets in Barcelona and Lleida were blocked, as was the AP-7 motorway, south of Barcelona, and A2 linking Barcelona to Madrid, images on Catalan TV showed.

Activists also got into Catalonia’s regional government building in Girona and took away the facade’s Spanish flag, replacing it with a red, yellow and blue separatist flag. In his speech, Torra praised their actions, saying they were “doing well in putting on the pressure.”

Damaged Spain’s reputation

A year after the contested October 1, 2017 referendum, disagreements over separatism have nevertheless deepened in the wealthy northeastern region of Spain, which is home to some 7.5 million people and has its own distinct language. Far from uniting the community, it has polarized opinion, leaving deep divisions over the region’s fate. The independence movement itself is divided and rudderless, with the separatist parties that have an absolute majority in the regional parliament split on what strategy to pursue to break from Spaindirect confrontation or moderation.

The protests were called online by a grassroots group calling itself the Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDRs), founded to help stage last year’s banned referendum and now demanding a clean break with the Spanish state. “A year ago we voted for independence... Let’s act,” the CDRs tweeted. Already on Saturday, Barcelona was the scene of unrest, with 24 people injured and six detained when separatists clashed with police.

They were taking part in a demonstration called to counter a rally by police paying tribute to colleagues deployed to prevent the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. The Catalan government, then led by Carles Puigdemont, pushed ahead with the vote on secession despite it having been deemed illegal by the Spanish courts. The vote was marred by a violent police crackdown on polling stations that made headlines around the world.

Even if it was illegal and therefore non-binding, 2.3 million people cast their ballots out of 5.5 million eligible voters, 90 percent of whom voted to break from Spain. Opponents of independence largely boycotted the vote. In a radio interview, the spokeswoman for the Socialist government in Madrid, Isabel Celaa, said the referendum had been “illegal” and had no “legal consequence.”

But she said the sometimes violent police intervention to impede the vote-as ordered by Spain’s then conservative government-was a mistake. She said the footage of police charging at voters-even if some of it was later found to be false-”seriously damaged Spain’s reputation” abroad. After the Catalan government declared unilateral independence on October 27, Madrid swiftly sacked the Catalan government, prompting several key figures to flee abroad, including Puigdemont. Others were jailed.

In total, 13 separatist leaders have been charged with rebellion, nine of whom are in preventative custody in Spain awaiting trial, while four others are in self-exile in Belgium, Scotland and Switzerland. In a video broadcast on social media, Puigdemont called on pro-independence Catalans to “not divert from the only path possible to be able to live in a full democracy-achieving the republic and its international recognition.”—AFP