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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @12:18AM
In California (Nor Cal, So Cal, Central, Cascade, and Sierras. Possibly Western variants as well via port cities)
We need transportation infrastructure with relatively tolerant laws for traveling between regions, but each region needs more flexibility in its laws than region specific laws would allow. Working this out would be difficult but could allow more diversity in individual regions so long as shared resources such as water and air were suitably preserved by all parties (IE nobody upstream taking all the water or upwind polluting all the air.)
But actual social laws and taxes and such need to be decided far more on the local community level than they currently are, and less money collected and dispensed to other regions. Let them figure out their own economy rather than having others prop it up thanks to better federal politicians/pandering.