Catalans threaten civil disobedience

DETERMINED: SEPARATISTS BENT ON INDEPENDENCE

Prime minister plans to remove leader Puigdemont and his executive.

Barcelona

Afar-left Catalan party yesterday threatened “massive civil disobedience” if Spain dismisses the region’s government to stave off its threat to declare independence.

The Popular Unity Candidacy (PUC) party denounced Madrid’s plans as the “biggest aggression” against the Catalan people since the Franco dictatorship.

“This aggression will receive a response in the form of massive civil disobedience,” said the party, a key regional power broker, in a statement.

PUC’s threat upped the stakes in the standoff over Catalan independence, which has raised fears of unrest in Spain’s deepest political crisis in decades.

Half a million angry separatists took to the streets of Barcelona on Saturday after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced he would remove Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and his executive.

Rajoy said Madrid would take control of ministries under unprecedented measures to stop the region breaking away.

The PUC is a key ally of the ruling separatist coalition in the regional parliament.

It said the details of the protest actions it is planning would be unveiled later this week.

Catalan parties were scheduled to meet yesterday to set a date and agenda for a gathering of the regional parliament to debate their next steps.

Such a session could give the ruling separatists another opportunity to declare unilateral independence. They have been threatening to do so since holding a banned referendum on the issue on October 1.

“What happens now, with everyone in agreement and unity, is that we will announce what we will do and how,” Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull said.

He denounced what he called “a fully fledged coup against Catalan institutions”.

Although polls indicate Catalans are divided on whether to break away from Spain, autonomy remains a sensitive issue in the region of 7.5 million people. Catalonia fiercely defends its language and culture and has previously enjoyed control over its policing, education and healthcare.

Francisco Franco – who ruled from 1939 until 1975 – took Catalonia’s political powers away and banned official use of the Catalan language.

In the fallout from the referendum, Spain’s government says it had no choice but to use previously untested constitutional powers to seize control of the region in order to preserve the unity of the country. Madrid could take control of the Catalan police force and replace its public media chiefs. –