Assange’s support angers his hosts

Locals stage sleep-ins at polling stations to make sure the vote can take place, but police have been ordered to clear them out.

Supporters of Catalan independence have occupied polling stations, setting up a confrontation with police who have been ordered to clear them out by tonight to ensure a referendum cannot go ahead.

The Spanish government, which has sent thousands of police reinforcements to stop people voting and has attempted to dismantle the infrastructure needed to conduct the referendum, which it says is illegal, insisted the vote would not go ahead.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said: ‘‘Everything is prepared at the more than 2000 voting points so they have ballot boxes and voting slips, and have everything people need to express their opinion.’’

Bands played at a closing rally for the referendum campaign in Barcelona, where people constructed the slogan ‘‘Referendum is democracy’’ in big white letters on a stage in front of a cheering crowd, many draped in the red and yellow Catalan flag.

People preparing to camp out in polling stations in order to defy court orders to close them were also in high spirits. At one Barcelona school, Hector, a 43-year-old local, said five or six families would be spending the night. They planned to play pingpong and cook a fideua seafood dish.

The head of the Catalan regional police has ordered officers to evacuate and close polling stations by 6am Sunday local time, before voting is due to open at 9am.

In an internal memo published by La Vanguardia newspaper, the police chief said force should be used only as a last resort.

‘‘At all times, before using force, you must take into account what might be the consequences of this police action and avoid the escalation of this situation, especially when there are children, elderly or other vulnerable people amongst the crowd,’’ the document, whose authenticity was confirmed by a police spokeswoman, said.

So far, the Catalan police, known as the Mossos, a force that is held in affection in the region, particularly after Islamist terror attacks in August, have shown a friendly face.

‘‘The Mossos have come to see what we are doing, and they’ve seen we’re having a party,’’ said 45-year-old Ferran Taberner, who was at the school with his daughter.

‘‘If it gets complicated, we’ll stay inside peacefully and they won’t move us.’’

Organisers said 60,000 people had registered to participate in the mass school sleepover, which they said would show peaceful resistance, even if they were prevented from voting.

‘‘I don’t believe there will be anyone who will use violence or who will want to provoke violence that will tarnish the irreproachable image of the Catalan independence movement as pacifist,’’ Puigdemont said.

He said more than 6000 ballot boxes were being kept in a secret place.

Police have confiscated thousands of voting papers, and courts have fined and threatened to arrest regional officials.

Catalonia’s High Court ordered Google to delete a smartphone application that the Catalan government was using to spread information about the vote.

Madrid, which claims the authority of a constitution that declares the country to be indivisible, remains implacably opposed to the vote, but also expressed the hope that today would be peaceful.

‘‘I insist that there will be no referendum on October 1,’’ government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said, adding that organisers would face criminal charges for trying to hold it.

In a sign that large crowds are expected on the streets today, department store chain El Corte Ingles said it would shut three stores in central Barcelona. The central government said airspace above the city would be partly restricted.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government has accused the Scottish National Party of meddling in its affairs, after some of its members joined rallies in support of Catalonia’s secession.

SNP MPs Douglas Chapman and Joanna Cherry are among a delegation of 33 politicians from around the world who have arrived in Catalonia to back the movement, along with delegates from Wales’s Plaid Cymru and Ireland’s Sinn Fein.

Chapman visited the Catalan parliament this week, having previously accused the government in Madrid of overstepping a "red line" by arresting Catalan officials. A vigorous campaign by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to break Catalonia off from Spain is landing him in hot water with the government of Ecuador, which has provided him with diplomatic refuge in its embassy in London.

Assange and Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno have traded barbs this week over whether his behaviour comports with that of someone granted political asylum.

Assange has challenged Moreno to try to silence him. ‘‘If President Moreno wants to gag my reporting of human rights abuses in Spain he should say so explicitly – together with the legal basis,’’ he tweeted.

Friction between Assange and his Ecuadorean hosts has grown since May, when Moreno took office.

Moreno has told two international television networks in the past week that Assange should watch his tongue and not harm Ecuador’s relations with its allies.

Assange has been living in Ecuador’s London embassy since 2012, after being granted asylum to sidestep possible espionage charges that he feared the United States government sought to bring against him for publicising classified US government documents and cables.

Assange has taken a fierce interest in the Catalonia independence drive, and has tweeted more than 100 times in multiple languages in the past three days about the referendum.

Ecuador, like most Latin American countries that won independence from Spain two centuries ago, maintains vigorous, even emotional, relations with Madrid.

The friction between Assange and Moreno appears unlikely to lead Ecuador to revoke his status at its London embassy.

However, the personal antipathy between the two appears to be growing.

Shortly after taking office, Moreno dismissed Assange as a ‘‘hacker’’ and said hacking was an activity ‘‘I personally reject’’. He affirmed that Assange would be allowed to remain in the Ecuadorean embassy but warned him not to interfere in Ecuador’s relations with other countries.

Assange responded by saying that Moreno had slandered him.

At all times, before using force, you must take into account what might be the consequences of this police action and avoid the escalation of this situation. Catalan regional police memo