BARCELONA: Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was urged to resign on Sunday after national police attacked citizens in the northeastern region of Catalonia who were participating in a referendum that Madrid has declared illegal.
As voting centers started counting the votes cast, Catalonia’s health services also raised the number of people injured by police to 761 people who were treated at hospitals.
The service said two people are in serious condition in hospitals in Barcelona. It also said that another person is being treated for an eye injury that fits the profile of having been hit by a rubber bullet.
Spanish riot police smashed their way into polling stations across the northeastern region to try and stop Sunday’s referendum on independence. Spain’s top court had suspended the vote but local authorities went ahead anyway.
Police used batons, fired rubber bullets, and roughed up voters. Catalan authorities say police even used tear gas once.
Despite the violence, Catalonians declared success in the referendum as voting ended.
At one voting station in Barcelona, in the Joan Miro school, applause broke out Sunday night after 8 p.m. as it was announced that voting had ended. Volunteers opened the plastic ballot boxes, turned them over and started sorting the ballots. The “yes” pile was many times bigger than the “no” pile.
Joan Maria Pique, spokesman for Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, says that polling stations are closing except at those where people are still waiting to vote.
Amid the violence, Barcelona’s mayor called on Rajoy to quit in shame.
Mayor Ada Colau told TV3 that “Rajoy has been a coward, hiding behind the prosecutors and courts. Today he crossed all the red lines with the police actions against normal people, old people, families who were defending their fundamental rights.”
“It seems obvious to me that Mariano Rajoy should resign,” she said.
Colau also said that after the violence Sunday, Catalonia has “earned the right to demand” a proper vote on independence from Spain. She said “the European Union must take a stand on what has happened in Catalonia.”
‘Shame of Europe’
Catalonia’s pro-independence regional government said Spain is “the shame of Europe” for the way it has cracked down on the region’s bid to hold a secession referendum.
Government spokesman Jordi Turull said “what the police are doing is simply savage, it’s an international scandal.”
“Today, Spain is the shame of Europe,” Turull said.
Turull said that despite police actions “the trend we are seeing is that millions have voted,” adding that a recount of votes would take some time. He said police had closed 319 polling stations out of some 2,300.
‘Proportionate’ violence
Spain’s foreign minister said the violence seen Sunday was “unfortunate” and “unpleasant” but “proportionate.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis blamed the violence exclusively on Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and his regional government.
“If people insist in disregarding the law and doing something that has been consistently declared illegal and unconstitutional, law enforcement officers need to uphold the law,” he said.
Officials say at least 465 people and 11 police were injured Sunday. Videos showed police roughing up voters, who tried to shield themselves from blows.
Dastis said, however, “it was a proportionate use of force, there was no excessive violence and it was a reaction to the situation they were faced with when they were prevented from doing their job.”
On the streets of Madrid there are mixed reactions to the crackdown.
Francisco Lopez, 53, said the authorities’ use of force to stop the voting was justified. He says “when there is an unlawful act, the security forces are there to prevent this unlawful act.”
Jose Daniel Rodríguez, a 67-year-old university teacher, disagreed, saying the Spanish government should have let the vote go ahead. He says “in a democratic society, everyone has the right to express themselves.”
Others called for both sides to resolve the situation through negotiations, not police operations.
Ignacio Osorio, 51, says “I believe that from today we have to sit and talk, without conditions.”
