700k protest police violence in Barcelona, Catalonia stages general strike

RT
Tue, 03 Oct 2017 17:05 UTC

© Susana Vera / Reuters

People raise hands and Estelada (Catalan separatist flag) during a demonstration two days after the banned independence referendum in Barcelona, Spain, October 3, 2017

Up to 700,000 people have taken to the streets of Barcelona in the wake of Sunday's controversial Catalonia independence referendum, municipal police announced. Huge crowds rallied Tuesday against the violent crackdown on voters by Spanish police.

Roads and traffic was blocked throughout the city on Tuesday, as protesters marched, chanting, "Independence!" and "The streets will always be ours!"

Some 700,000 people took to the streets, Barcelona municipal police announced on Twitter.

Thousands gathered outside the offices of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) in Barcelona and the Catalonia regional HQ of the national police as police stood guard. Protesters shouted slogans and waved the red-and-yellow Catalan flag, and groups of firemen played bagpipes outside the PP's office as the crowd cheered them on.

RT's Madina Kochenova and Anastasia Churkina dived into the rally at Barcelona's central square, reporting live from the protest on Tuesday.

Youngsters and elderly people, families with small children were among a bustling crowd of jubilant demonstrators that filled the square in protest against the Spanish government's crackdown.

"They are asking, they are shouting at national police forces to leave the region of Catalonia," Kochenova reported from the protest in the afternoon.

As darkness fell, people showed no sign of calming down, Churkina reported.

"Looks like it's going to continue through the evening through the guise of people not only protesting the policy brutality but also that Catalonia has seen during the referendum but also the general actions of Madrid," the correspondent said.

A young female protester echoed the general mood as she told Churkina the actions of Madrid would not be tolerated by the locals anymore.

"We will not accept anything like this anymore. We're heartbroken. We just wanted to use our right to vote. We think it's not normal how the government behaved," the protester said.

A protest strike was also called by major trade unions as government workers walked out and businesses and universities shut for the day. Metro stations were empty as services were drastically cut back, while the usually busy Boqueria market was deserted. Famous tourist attractions such as the Sagrada Familia church were also shut down.

Even FC Barcelona took part, canceling all its training sessions for the day. However, the main unions, the CCOO and UGT, avoided calling the walkout a general strike, instead called it a "temporary work stoppage" to get around laws that prohibit striking for political reasons.

The Spanish government has condemned the protests as an affront to the rule of law.

"I've seen how President Puigdemont has flooded the streets with his followers to stop people obeying the law and to make them disrespect justice," said Rajoy's deputy prime minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria. "We are here to defend the rights and liberties of all Spaniards that have been trampled upon by the regional government."

The Spanish government and the country's Constitutional Court have declared the Catalonia referendum illegal, and dispatched thousands of officers from the National Police and the Civil Guard to prevent the vote taking place. In the ensuring operation, nearly 900 people were wounded as officers deployed batons and rubber bullets to break up crowds of voters.

Despite this, millions of Catalans still turned up to cast their ballots. Of those who managed to vote, the Catalan authorities claim, 90 percent voted for independence. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has said he will take steps to start separating from Spain, and has appealed for international mediation with the central government.

Comment: During the strike, two major ports at Barcelona and Tarragona were "practically at a standstill". "The agrarian sector was also at a near-standstill but Barcelona-El Prat airport was functioning normally."

Unsurprisingly, Spain's crackdown has "spawned new separatists". AP gave one example:

For teacher Elisa Aroca, Sunday was the moment Spain lost the battle for the hearts and minds of 7.5 million people living in the Catalonia region.

Aroca intended to defend her Spanish roots and cast a ballot against Catalonia breaking away from the rest of the country. But when a squad of police in riot gear marched up, roughly tossed her and other voters aside and shattered the glass entrance of the Estel School in central Barcelona to confiscate ballot boxes, she felt something break inside her.

"I felt so angry and hurt inside that I thought, 'A country that hits me wants me to stay? You don't listen to me and on top of it you hit me?' For me that is abuse," she said a day later.
...
"I was crying from rage," she recalled. "Now, I was going to vote no matter what. My husband and I didn't even have to talk about it, we just looked each other in the eyes and we knew that we had to vote. And that we had to vote 'yes' (for independence)."

Born of parents from other parts of Spain, Aroca, a 40-year-old mother of two, still wants to embrace a dual identity of both Spanish and Catalan. But she says the political crisis caused by a lack of dialogue between Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Catalan regional chief Carles Puigdemont has forced her to choose.

"All bonds have been broken. Not by the referendum, but by the police," Aroca said. "I feel rage and pain. I think that is how most people feel, seeing what people are chatting about, talks I have had at work. (Sunday) night I was very sad, truly sad that it has reached this point of me wondering what kind of country my daughters will inherit."