Resist Spain peacefully, separatist leader urges

BARCELONA, Spain— Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont called Saturday for peaceful resistance to direct rule by Madrid, a day after Spain’s central government fired him and dissolved his government in response to Catalonia’s unilateral declaration of independence.

The Madrid government, meanwhile, began implementing its administrative takeover of Catalonia, the first such imposition of direct central rule in a Spanish region since the advent of democracy nearly 40 years ago.

Puigdemont, in a brief prerecorded statement shown on Catalan public TV, called for resistance to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s directives, but offered no specifics about his own situation.

“It’s very clear that the best form of defending gains made up until now is democratic opposition to Article 155,” Puigdemont said, referring to the constitutional provision that Madrid invoked in response to the region’s independence drive.

The article gives the Spanish central government the authority to strip a region of its autonomous powers in the event of a serious breach of law. Catalonia, like other Spanish regions, was granted autonomy powers under the 1979 constitution that gave it limited control over its own affairs. The mood in Barcelona, Catalonia’s capital, was largely calm Saturday, following a night of raucous street celebrations— and some scattered violence— after the Catalan parliament’s vote to break away from Spain. Local police patrolled busy tourist areas near the Catalan parliament and government buildings, where hundreds of tourists mixed with independentistas in the mild afternoon sun.