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Police and would-be voters have clashed during a Catalan independence referendum held on Sunday:
Scenes of chaos and violence unfolded in Catalonia as an independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid devolved quickly on Sunday. As police followed orders from the central government to put a stop to the vote, they fired rubber bullets at unarmed protesters and smashed through the glass at polling places, reports The Associated Press. Three hundred and thirty-seven people were injured, some seriously, according to Catalonia's government spokesman.
Spain's Interior Ministry said a dozen police officers were injured. NPR's Lauren Frayer reports from Barcelona that some people were throwing rocks down at officers from balconies. Yet the violence came from all directions.
"Horrible scenes," Lauren reports. "Police dragging voters out of polling stations, some by the hair."
Scuffles erupted as riot police forcefully removed hundreds of would-be voters from polling places across Barcelona, the Catalan capitol, reports AP. Nevertheless, many people, managed to successfully cast their ballots across the region after waiting in lines hundreds-of-people-deep, including the elderly and families with small children, says Reuters.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that he did not acknowledge the vote and called it "illegal".
Also at NYT, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and BBC:
Catalan emergency officials say 761 people have been injured as police used force to try to block voting in Catalonia's independence referendum.
Update: Catalan referendum: Catalonia has 'won right to statehood'
Spain Vows to Enforce the Law in Rebel Catalonia
Catalonia Leaders Seek to Make Independence Referendum Binding
Previously: Spain Trying to Stop Catalonia Independence Referendum
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 03 2017, @03:57PM (1 child)
Madrid is in a pickle. They screwed the pooch in Spain, but did they also screw the pooch for the EU? Does the EU sit it out and let Spain sort out its own mess, or do they side with Madrid as the official holder of that country's vote in the EU? If the EU intervenes on the side of Catalonia, how long before the Basques split off from Madrid and Paris (the Basque region straddles the border), and separatist movements pick up speed in other EU member states? Belgium would probably have split in half a while ago if Brussels weren't the host city for the EU; the Flemish and Walloons hate each other.
It's hard to imagine the Catalans taking up arms against Madrid, but I don't think mass strikes and protests are going to get them anywhere. Do they sever bridges and roads and throw officials from Madrid out of the region?
How emotionally invested are Spaniards from Valencia and Galicia in keeping the Catalans in the union, too? Do they care that much? Are they willing to forcibly repress the Catalans?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @03:31AM
How pressed are Catalans to keep on with it while companies move out, study plans to do so, or at least raise concerns? (Similar to Brexit, BTW. Let's do a drama, and once it passes, start looking for a plan because there was none before, at least none thinking about the consequences.) Factories are harder to move, but don't discard it... or maybe multinationals will take advantage of it in next job cuts round, saving many jobs in other places.
Three quick examples:
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2017/10/03/catalunya/1507048764_007271.html [elpais.com] Oryzon biotech moves to Madrid.
http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2017/10/03/59d3dbf1ca474164208b45b0.html [elmundo.es] CaixaBank ties decissions to customers'.
http://www.larazon.es/espana/el-presidente-de-mercadona-asustado-y-preocupado-por-la-situacion-en-cataluna-BC16413929 [larazon.es] Owner of supermarkets covering all Spain is worried, also because new train route covering Mediterranean would be cut.
As a commenter said in a newspaper, Spain is going to suffer, but Catalonia way more.
BTW, it seems international news don't cover much detail of who is behind. A good chunk of the noise comes from self declared anticapitalists. They only have 10/135 seats in the Parlament, but are very vocal. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidatura_d%27Unitat_Popular_(CUP) [wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Unity_Candidacy [wikipedia.org] and while checking those pages, the ideas look great "in paper"... but the actions of past days seem to devolve into mob rule, with no dissidence allowed. Tuesday was a strike day on Catalonia, and people that wanted to work had issues to do so.
And how does it work with getting back into EU (or, in wet dreams, not leaving at all) as the other part of separatists (the irony...) want? With 29/135 seats PDeCat is proEurope https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_Dem%C3%B3crata_Europeo_Catal%C3%A1n [wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_European_Democratic_Party [wikipedia.org] (yes, "young" party, because the previous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Convergence_of_Catalonia [wikipedia.org] got bogged down in the 3% and Pujol corruption, so they needed a face change). CUP and JxSi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junts_pel_S%C3%AD [wikipedia.org] (CDC-PDeCat plus others, totalling 62/135) joined efforts to split from Spain, then... what?
Nationwide reporters that always were taken as pro Catalan, pro Left, or to sum up, anti Madrid, are also becoming a target for mobs. http://www.elmundo.es/television/2017/10/03/59d3c0b146163f7d528b4602.html [elmundo.es]
It's a cluster fuck even inside each side (other time I could talk about the "Madrid parties", their bad decisions, internal splits, corruption...).