AT LEAST 800 INJURED IN CATALONIA CLASHES
POLICE HURT INDEPENDENCE VOTERS
Spanish riot police smashed into polling stations Sunday in the Catalonia region and wounded more than 800 people trying to vote on an independence referendum the government had banned as unconstitutional.
Violence erupted shortly after polls opened in northeastern Spain’s autonomous Catalonia region, with video showing Spanish police firing rubber bullets, using batons and roughing up voters.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, in a televised address after the polls closed, declared there was no independence vote and called the referendum an “attack on the rule of law.”
Rajoy also thanked the police for acting with “firmness and serenity.” The Spanish government in Madrid had opposed the referendum, and Spain’s highest court earlier ruled to suspend the vote, but local authorities went ahead.
“What the police are doing is simply savage,” said Jordi Turull, spokesman for the Catalan regional government, which backs independence. He said Spain has become “the shame of Europe” with its iron-fist tactics.
Catalonia’s health services said 844 people were injured, with two in serious condition. Spain’s Interior Ministry said 33 police officers were injured.
In a sign of protest against the Spanish government, Barcelona’s soccer team played their scheduled game against Las Palmas in an empty, 100,000-seat stadium. The team issued a statement condemning efforts to keep voters from “exercising their democratic right to free expression.”
For weeks, Spain has warned that the vote is unconstitutional, and authorities detained some Catalan officials. The Spanish government ordered police to shut down voting centers ahead of Sunday’s vote.
Catalans pushed back. Over the weekend, people used tractors and other vehicles to block Spanish security from accessing the polling places, also removing doors so they couldn’t be nailed closed or padlocked.
Polling stations across the region drew long lines before dawn.
“I will vote in favor of independence. I’ve been in favor of it since I was a student,” said Anto- ni Ruiz Cornellà, 46, an economist in Barcelona. “People here are not looking for violence, but I’m not sure that’s the case with the Spanish side.”
In an evening televised address, Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont said Catalonia had “won the right to become an independent state.”
“Today the Spanish state wrote another shameful page in its history with Catalonia,” he said, adding that he would appeal to the European Union to look into alleged human rights violations.
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau called on Rajoy to resign after police were seen beating people.
“Rajoy has been a coward, hiding behind the prosecutors and courts. Today he crossed all the red lines with the police actions against normal people, old people, families who were defending their fundamental rights,” she told TV3.
Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis blamed the violence on Puigdemont.
“If people insist in disregarding the law and doing something that has been consistently declared illegal and unconstitutional, law enforcement officers need to uphold the law,” Dastis said.