Spanish riot police burst into polling stations across Catalonia on Sunday, confiscating ballot boxes and voting papers to try to halt a banned referendum on a split from Spain as Madrid asserted its authority over the rebel region.<\/p>\n
Police broke down doors to force entry into voting stations as defiant Catalans shouted \u201cOut with the occupying forces!\u201d and sang the anthem of the wealthy northeastern region. In one incident in Barcelona, police fired rubber projectiles.<\/p>\n
Catalan officials said 337 people had been injured in the police crackdown. Officers in riot gear hit people with batons and forcibly removed would-be voters, including women and the elderly, from polling stations.<\/p>\n
The referendum, declared illegal by Spain\u2019s central government, has thrown the country into its worst constitutional crisis in decades and deepened a centuries-old rift between Madrid and Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Despite the police action, hundreds-strong queues of people formed in cities and villages throughout the region to cast their votes. At one Barcelona polling station, elderly people and those with children entered first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so pleased because despite all the hurdles they\u2019ve put up, I\u2019ve managed to vote,\u201d said Teresa, a 72-year-old pensioner in Barcelona who had stood in line for six hours.<\/p>\n
The ballot will have no legal status as it has been blocked by Spain\u2019s Constitutional Court and Madrid for being at odds with the 1978 constitution.<\/p>\n
A minority of around 40 percent of Catalans support independence, polls show, although a majority want to hold a referendum on the issue. The region of 7.5 million people has an economy larger than that of Portugal.<\/p>\n
However much voting takes place, a \u201cyes\u201d result is likely, given that most of those who support independence are expected to cast ballots while most of those against it are not.<\/p>\n
LARGE CROWDS<\/p>\n
Organisers had asked voters to turn out before dawn, hoping for large crowds to be the world\u2019s first image of voting day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a great opportunity. I\u2019ve waited 80 years for this,\u201d said 92-year-old Ramon Jordana, a former taxi driver waiting to vote in Sant Pere de Torello, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees and a pro-independence bastion.The Catalan government said voters could print out ballot papers at home and lodge them at any polling station not closed down by police.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, people were not able to access the ballot boxes. In a town in Girona province where Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was due to vote, Civil Guard police smashed glass panels to open the door and search for ballot boxes.<\/p>\n
Puigdemont voted in a different town in the province. He accused Spain of unjustified violence in stopping the vote and said it created a dreadful image of Spain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible violence of the Spanish state today has not only failed to stop Catalans\u2019 desire to vote … but has helped to clarify all the doubts we had to resolve today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Madrid government said 11 police officers were injured in the clashes.<\/p>\n
Nicola Sturgeon, the pro-independence leader of Scotland, which voted to remain part of the United Kingdom in a 2014 referendum, said she was concerned by the images she was seeing from Catalonia.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegardless of views on independence, we should all condemn the scenes being witnessed and call on Spain to change course before someone is seriously hurt,\u201d she said on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel tweeted: \u201cViolence can never be the answer! We condemn all forms of violence and reaffirm our call for political dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spanish riot police burst into polling stations across Catalonia on Sunday, confiscating ballot boxes and voting papers to try to halt a banned referendum on a split from Spain as Madrid asserted its authority over the rebel region. Police broke down doors to force entry into voting stations as defiant Catalans shouted \u201cOut with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6549,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6547\/revisions\/6549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}