Separatists vow to defy ultimatum on Catalan vote

BARCELONA, Spain — Catalan separatists vowed Saturday to ignore a police ultimatum to leave the schools they are occupying to use in a vote seeking independence from Spain.

As police sealed off hundreds of schools, some parents decided to send their children home and girded for pre-dawn confrontations Sunday with police.

Tensions rose across the country over the planned vote. In Madrid, the Spanish capital, thousands marched to protest the separatists’ attempt to break up their nation, demanding that Catalan leaders be sent to jail. In Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, thousands more also took to the streets to urge their prosperous region to stay united with Spain.

The police deadline of 6 a.m. Sunday for the activists, parents and children in the occupied Catalan schools is designed to prevent the vote from taking place, as polls are supposed to open three hours later.

Spain’s Constitutional Court suspended the independence vote more than three weeks ago, and the national government calls it illegal. Police have been ordered to stop ballots from being cast Sunday and have been cracking down for days, confiscating millions of ballots and posters.

But Catalonia’s defiant regional government is pressing ahead, urging the region’s 5.3 million voters to make their voices heard.

Spain’s foreign minister dismissed the planned vote as anti-democratic, saying it runs “counter to the goals and ideals” of the European Union.