Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Spanish court says Catalans’ vote to split illegal
BARCELONA, Spain — Spain’s top court ruled Tuesday that an independence referendum in Catalonia was unconstitutional, adding weight to government efforts to block the region from breaking away from the rest of the country, while demonstrators demanded the release of two jailed separatist activists.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling was not a surprise. The Spanish government had repeatedly insisted the referendum was illegal. Regional leaders defied the Madrid-based central government and held the Oct. 1 vote even after police seized millions of ballots and used force to close polling stations.
Supporters of secession maintain that the yes vote won and that Catalan officials have a mandate to declare independence. Portraying the central government as repressive, they showed no signs of giving up despite the court’s conclusion that the referendum was invalid.
Last week, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont made an ambiguous statement about the region’s future, saying he has the mandate to declare independence but adding that he would not immediately move to implement it in order to allow time for talks with the central government.
Spain has said that no dialogue can take place with independence on the table because an overhaul of the country’s Constitution with an ample majority in the national parliament is the only legal way to achieve secession.
Thousands of people holding candles and banners flooded a main avenue in Barcelona on Tuesday night to demand the release of the two Catalan activists jailed by Spanish authorities a day earlier on possible sedition charges over accusations they organized pro-independence rallies ahead of the vote.
“We are facing an executive power in the state that uses the judiciary branch to block the legislative,” Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull told reporters shortly after the Constitutional Court ruling was announced.
On Monday, a Madrid judge provisionally jailed Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, who lead two different grassroots groups that promote independence for Catalonia. The judge ruled that they were behind demonstrations Sept. 20-21 in Barcelona that hindered the police operation against preparations for the referendum.
Participants in the Tuesday protest chanted, “Political prisoners, freedom.”
Earlier in the day, the Catalan government accused the Spanish government of destroying any chance of dialogue by arresting Sanchez and Cuixart.
Turull told Catalunya Radio, a Barcelona-based station, that the Spanish state had “dynamited” Puigdemont’s proposal for talks.
Turull said in his radio interview that “this isn’t a matter of independence or not, but of democracy, of having political prisoners in the 21st century.”
Fernando Martinez-Maillo, a senior official of the governing Popular Party in Spain, denied on national television Tuesday that the arrests were politically motivated, saying, “I am very proud of a country where there is separation of powers.”
“Does anybody really think that if you destroy a police car, nothing then happens?” Martinez-Maillo said. “There is an attempt to portray Spain as a repressive country, which leads to nowhere and doesn’t represent reality.”
Meanwhile, Agusti Alcoberro, who is standing in for Sanchez as head of the Catalan national assembly, said peaceful protests would be the local response to what he said was the Spanish government’s heavy-handed approach.
“No modern state in the 21st century can survive if it bases its legitimacy on subjugating politically and dominating part of its population with the police and military,” Alcoberro said. “That is suicidal, and somebody should explain it to the Spanish government.”
Information for this article was contributed by Aritz Parra, Ciaran Giles and Barry Hatton of The Associated Press; and by Raphael Minder of The New York Times.