Cops in ballot bash
Club, kick Catalan voters as they choose independence
Spanish riot police smashed their way into Catalan polling stations on Sunday to try to halt a disputed referendum on independence, firing rubber bullets and attacking voters who were trying to stop them from confiscating ballots. The daylong melee injured at least 761 civilians and 11 officers, authorities said.
Preliminary results showed 90 percent voted in favor of independence, but that number was likely inflated by the fact that many people in the region who saw the measure as illegitimate stayed away from the polls, according to reports.
In a televised address after the polls in the northeastern region closed, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted there had been no independence referendum at all, claiming the majority of Catalans did not “follow the script of the secessionists.”
Rajoy said the referendum, which had been barred by the country’s constitutional court, served only to sow divisions. In comments sure to anger Catalonians, he praised the Spanish police, saying they acted with “firmness and serenity.”
Police were acting on orders from a judge to stop the voting process.
Officers used batons, fired rubber bullets, and roughed up voters. Catalan authorities say some officers used tear gas.
At the Pau Claris School in Barcelona, footage by one voter showed police aggressively removing people, dragging a person by the hair and pushing others down a flight of stairs.
The individuals seen in videos being hit, kicked and thrown around by police included elderly people with their dogs, young girls and regular citizens of all stripes. Many tried to shield themselves from being smacked on the head. Some screamed in fear.
Catalan’s health service said two people were in serious condition in hospitals in Barcelona, and another person was being treated for an eye injury that fit the profile of having been hit by a rubber bullet.
“Police brutality will shame forever the Spanish state,” independence-minded Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said as crowds cheered.
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau called on the prime minister to resign over the violence.
“Rajoy has been a coward, hiding behind the prosecutors and courts,” she told TV3.
“Today, he crossed all the red lines with the police actions against normal people, old people, families who were defending their fundamental rights.”