Chaos, violence mar Catalonia vote
MORE THAN 700 TREATED FOR INJURIES AFTER WIDESPREAD SCUFFLES; ‘TODAY, SPAIN IS THE SHAME OF EUROPE’
M ore than 700 were injured yesterday as Spanish police tried to prevent Catalans from casting votes in a disputed independence referendum.
Television images showed riot police from Spain’s national police force, the Guardia Civil, firing rubber bullets, using batons and pulling voters out of polling stations by their hair in an attempt to undermine the referendum result.
Catalan health officials say 761 people were treated from injuries, while 17 policemen were also hurt in the widespread scuffles and protests.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that the rule of law had prevailed in Catalonia because an independence referendum in the region prohibited by the courts had been blocked. “Today there has not been a self-determination referendum in Catalonia. The rule of law remains in force with all its strength,” he said.
Despite threats of prosecution, seized ballot papers, and the censuring of websites sympathetic to the separatist cause, Catalan officials say the result of the vote — and the vast majority of those who did cast votes voted ‘Yes’ for independence — will give a mandate to declare the linguistically and culturally unique region self-government and independence from the other 16 regions of Spain.
Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the Catalan regional assembly, said the batons, rubber bullets and violence used by Spanish police had shown a “dreadful external image of Spain.”
“The unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible violence of the Spanish state today has not only failed to stop Catalans’ desire to vote ... but has helped to clarify all the doubts we had to resolve today,” he said.
Catalonia Government spokesman Jordi Turull said: “What the police are doing is simply savage, it’s an international scandal.” He said: “Today, Spain is the shame of Europe.” The vote constitutes the deepest political crisis in Spain since the end of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco four decades ago, and has exposed a searing rift between Madrid and its second-largest city.