Catalan protests as police try to stop self-rule vote
SPAIN: Thousands of protesters burst on to the streets of Barcelona yesterday after Spanish police arrested 14 people in sweeping raids on Catalan government departments in a bid to halt the region’s controversial referendum on independence.
Tensions flared between supporters of the referendum set for October 1 and police ordered to prevent the vote that has been suspended by Spain’s highest court.
At raided offices across the city, protesters shouted ‘‘Fascists!’’ and ‘‘Out, forces of occupation!’’ as police moved in wearing riot gear.
Several high-ranking officials were detained, among them Josep Lluis Salvador, the treasury secretary, and Josep Maria Jove, secretary general of the finance department.
Among 41 raids, police searched the Catalan government’s economic, foreign affairs, and labour and social affairs departments, as well as offices in the Presidency.
They also confiscated a haul of 9.6 million referendum ballot papers – believed to be the government’s entire consignment.
Carlos Puigdemont, the Catalan president, accused the Spanish state of ‘‘authoritarian’’ behaviour and suspending Catalonia’s autonomy by stealth.
‘‘The Spanish state has effectively suspended our selfgovernment and applied a de facto state of emergency.’’
He branded the crackdown a ‘‘co-ordinated aggression’’ by a state that had ‘‘crossed the red line that separated it from totalitarian regimes’’.
He insisted the vote would go ahead, even if it had to be carried out in an improvised manner. ‘‘On October 1 we will leave our homes, carrying a ballot paper and we will use them,’’ he said.
Catalonia would never accept a ‘‘return to times past,’’ he vowed – a reference to the Franco dictatorship, under which Catalan institutions and identity were brutally repressed.
But Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s prime minister, insisted that the Catalan government had forced the raids by violating the Spanish constitution and ignoring court warnings over a vote it did not have the legal power to call.
‘‘The state has to react. The referendum cannot take place because it would liquidate national sovereignty and the right of all Spaniards to decide what they want their country to be,’’ added Rajoy.
Outside the Barcelona headquarters of the CUP, the junior Catalan coalition partner, where hundreds attempted to face down raiding police, one woman wept as she cried: ‘‘The dictatorship has returned! Franco lives again!’’
– Telegraph Group