Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour
of independence
Spanish prime minister defends violent response to poll, as
raids on ballot stations by riot police leave hundreds of Catalans injured
Catalan leader opens
door to unilateral declaration of independence
Sam Jones, Stephen Burgen and agencies
Monday 2 October 2017 00.04 BST First published on Sunday 1
October 2017 13.50 BST
Catalan officials have claimed that preliminary results of
its referendum have shown 90% in favour of independence in the vote vehemently
opposed by Spain.
Jordi Turull, the Catalan regional government spokesman,
told reporters early on Monday morning that 90% of the 2.26 million Catalans
who voted Sunday chose yes. He said nearly 8% of voters rejected independence
and the rest of the ballots were blank or void. He said 15,000 votes were still
being counted.The region has 5.3 million registered voters.
Turull said the number of ballots did not include those
confiscated by Spanish police during violent raids which resulted in hundreds
of people being injured. At least 844 people and 33 police were reported to
have been hurt, including at least two people who were thought to have been
seriously injured.
Catalonia’s regional leader, Carles Puigdemont, spoke out
against the violence with a pointed address: “On this day of hope and
suffering, Catalonia’s citizens have earned the right to have an independent
state in the form of a republic.
“My government, in the next few days, will send the results
of [the] vote to the Catalan parliament, where the sovereignty of our people
lies, so that it can act in accordance with the law of the referendum.”
Puigdemont had pressed ahead with the referendum despite
opposition from the Spanish state, which declared the poll to be illegal, and
the region’s own high court. He told crowds earlier in the day that the “police
brutality will shame the Spanish state for ever”.
The Spanish government defended its response after hundreds
of people were hurt when riot police stormed polling stations in a last-minute
effort to stop the vote on Sunday.
Although many Catalans managed to cast their ballots, others
were forcibly stopped from voting as schools housing ballot boxes were raided
by police acting on the orders of the Catalan high court.
The large Ramon Llull school in central Barcelona was the
scene of a sustained operation, with witnesses describing police using axes to
smash the doors, charging the crowds and firing rubber bullets.
Spain’s interior ministry said 12 police officers had been
hurt and three people arrested for disobedience and assaulting officers.
The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, speaking on
Sunday night, said the government had done what it had had to do and thanked
the police for acting with “firmness and serenity”.
“Today there has not been a self-determination referendum in
Catalonia. The rule of law remains in force with all its strength. We are the
government of Spain and I am the head of the government of Spain and I accepted
my responsibility.
“We have done what was required of us. We have acted, as I
have said from the beginning, according to the law and only according to the
law. And we have shown that our democratic state has the resources to defend
itself from an attack as serious as the one that was perpetrated with this
illegal referendum. Today, democracy has prevailed because we have obeyed the
constitution.”
Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, demanded an end to the
police actions and called for the Rajoy’s resignation.
Artur Mas, the former Catalan president whose government
staged a symbolic independence referendum three years ago, called for the
“authoritarian” Rajoy to stand down, adding that Catalonia could not remain
alongside “a state that uses batons and police brutality”.
Enric Millo, the most senior Spanish government official in
the region, said the police had behaved “professionally” in carrying out a
judge’s orders.
Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the Spanish deputy prime minister,
echoed that position, saying the police had shown firmness, professionalism and
proportionality in the face of the “absolute irresponsibility” of the Catalan
government.
She called on Puigdemont to drop the “farce” of the
independence campaign, saying Spain had long since emerged from the
authoritarian shadow of the Franco dictatorship.
“I don’t know what world Puigdemont lives in, but Spanish
democracy does not work like this,” said Sáenz de Santamaría. “We have been
free from a dictatorship for a long time and of a man who told us his word in
the law.”
The Catalan government’s spokesperson Jordi Turull said 319
of the 2,315 polling stations set up for the referendum were closed by police.
Jesús López Rodríguez, a 51-year-old administrator, had
taken his family to vote at the Ramon Llull school in the morning. Like
thousands of Catalans, they began queuing from 5am. Three and a half hours
later, national police officers arrived in riot gear.
“They told us that the Catalan high court had ordered them
to take the ballot boxes and that we needed to disperse,” he told the Guardian.
“We chanted, ‘No! No! No!’, and then about 20 police officers charged us. It
was short – only about two minutes – but we stayed together.”
After about 15 minutes, eight or nine more police vans
appeared and officers began cordoning off the surrounding streets and arresting
people, López Rodrígue said.
“They dragged them out violently. We stood our ground but
they kept dragging people away, kicking them and throwing them to the ground.”
More police arrived and jumped over the school fence to
enter the building to look for ballot boxes. After using axes to break down the
doors of the school, they emerged with the boxes.
López Rodríguez said that at about 10.25am, police began
shooting rubber bullets – “at least 30 or 40”.
He fled the shots with his wife and children, returning to
their flat opposite the school. “I feel really angry about it,” he said, “but I
also hope people in Europe and around the world will see what’s happening in
Catalonia.”
Similar scenes were reported elsewhere. Riot police smashed
the glass doors of the sports centre near Girona where Puigdemont had been due
to vote. Despite forcing their way in, they failed to stop the Catalan
president voting. Pictures showed him casting his ballot in nearby Cornella del
Terri.
The day started peacefully and hopefully in polling stations
across the region. Hundreds of people started queuing outside the Cervantes
primary school in central Barcelona from well before dawn.
“I’m here to fight for our rights and our language and for
our right to live better and to have a future,” said Mireia Estape, who lives
close to the school. One man in the queue, who did not wish to be named, said
he had come because “Catalans need to vote; they’re robbing us in Spain”.
Another would-be voter said simply: “I don’t want to live in
a fascist country.”
Many Catalans saw their wishes fulfilled in polling stations
as officers from the regional force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, hung back.
Joaquín Pons, 89, was delighted to have cast his ballot, as
he had done in the symbolic referendum three years ago.
“Last time it was cardboard ballot boxes,” he said. “This
time they were real. It was very emotional.” Pons said he felt Catalans had had
little choice but to proceed unilaterally.
“It would have been nice if we could all have stayed
together in Spain but the Madrid government has made it impossible. It’s sad
but that’s the way it is.”
News and images of the police operation travelled quickly
through the crowds in Barcelona and elsewhere, adding to the uneasy atmosphere
that has intensified since police arrested 14 Catalan officials and seized
millions of ballot papers last week.
On Sunday afternoon, FC Barcelona announced that its Spanish
league game against Las Palmas would be played without fans at the city’s Nou
Camp stadium. In a statement, the club condemned the attempts to prevent
Catalans “exercising their democratic rights to free expression” and said the
professional football league had refused to postpone the game.
Sunday’s violence came less than 24 hours after the Spanish
government had appeared confident that enough had been done to thwart the vote.
On Saturday, Millo said police had sealed off 1,300 of the
region’s 2,315 polling stations, while Guardia Civil officers acting on a
judge’s orders had searched the headquarters of the Catalan technology and
communications centre, disabling the software connecting polling stations and
shutting down online voting applications.
“These last-minute operations have allowed us to very
definitively break up any possibility of the Catalan government delivering what
it promised: a binding, effective referendum with legal guarantees,” he said.
Additional reporting by Patrick Greenfield
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