Melee in Catalonia as Spanish police violently attack voters
BARCELONA, Spain — Spanish riot police smashed their way into Catalan polling stations 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 460 civilians and 11 police, authorities said.
Police were acting on orders from the Spanish government to stop the voting, which Spain’s constitutional Court had declared illegal.
The dispute over the independence vote in Catalonia, a wealthy northeastern region of 7.5 million people, has plunged Spain into a constitutional crisis. Spain’s violent crackdown on the vote — videos showed police roughing up voters — appeared likely only to harden positions on both sides.
At the Pau Claris School in Barcelona, footage by one voter showed police aggressively removing people blocking their way, in one case dragging a person by the hair and in other cases pushing them down a flight of stairs.
The people 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 people were screaming in fear.
It’s still unclear is how many of the region’s 5.3 million voters were able to turn out Sunday, how their votes would be counted, how many votes have confiscated already by police and what happens next if the separatist officials who run the region’s government declare independence based on the vote.
Spanish and Catalan officials traded blame for the chaos even as the voting continued Sunday afternoon.
“Police brutality will shame forever the Spanish state,” independence-minded Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said as crowds cheered.
Spanish deputy prime minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said police acted with “firmness and proportionality” and accused the Catalan government of gross irresponsibility in staging the banned vote.
“There hasn’t been a referendum or the semblance of one,” she said.
Police officers fired the rubber bullets while trying to clear protesters in Barcelona who were trying to prevent National Police cars from leaving with ballot boxes confiscated from a voting centre.
The confrontation shows signed of escalating even though both sides had said they did not want violence. Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau says more than 460 people have been injured in Catalonia in clashes with Spanish police, some seriously. Spain’s Interior Ministry said 11 police were injured in the clashes.
Tensions were running so high that Barcelona played its soccer game against Las Palmas without fans at the Camp Nou stadium. The team announced the match would be played behind closed doors with less than a half hour to kickoff, with thousands of soccer fans already outside the stadium. Barcelona wanted to postpone the game but said the Spanish league refused the request.
The vote was called in early September, crystalizing years of defiance by separatists in the affluent region that contributes mightily to Spain’s economy. As one of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions, Catalonia enjoys ample rights but key areas such as infrastructure and taxes are in the hands of Madrid. Separatist Catalans have long complained of contributing too much to the state while not getting enough in return.
The regional government’s spokesman, Jordi Turull, on Sunday blamed the violence directly on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and senior officials. He said the actions of Spanish National Police and Civil Guard forces were politically motivated and showed “a clear motivation to harm citizens.”
Catalan foreign affairs chief Raul Romeva said they will ask the European Union to act against Spain for the police action.