what the jeff is going on in Catalunia?

[ludothedog]

whether the vote is legitimate or not, for goodness sake, is deploying riot police to remove voters/protesters the right way? Terrible, Just terrible.

Can you imagine what would have happened if riot police were deployed to stop the Scottish independence referendum?

Surely by denying the Catalan people the vote all they will do is galvanise support for independence?

[Penny4UrThoughts]

It's dreadful. The government is doing everything they can to stop the election from going ahead - but seem to be blind to the fact that all their dubious tactics are basically making a vote for independence pretty much guaranteed.

Who wants to have a government that thinks it's ok to treat people that way?

[goldenclaire]

Spain are being wankers basically. Its the stuff civil wars are made of.

[ludothedog]

Spain is one of the last countries in Europe where you expect to see people demonstrating in the street for the right to vote and for riot Police to be denying them that.

What will he EU have to say about that? I hope there will be heavy sanctions on Spain...

Lets see if they have the courage to take action against Spain.

[ludothedog]

Police now described as using "significant violence" shooting balls at peaceful protests. Sounds like gun fire???

[FittonTower]

Not sure Spain is the last country where you'd expect to see this. It was a fasict dictatorship in living memory And the Catalan independnace movement is old and strong. I have family their and some of my cousins have been sleeping over night in a town hall to try and ensure the vote happens in their town.

[orlantina]

The scenes are shocking. Stopping people voting won't stop people thinking about it. It just adds fuel to the fire.

You can't use power to suppress feelings.

[littlehandcuffs]

Rubber bullets being fired. If the people were angry before this will surely inflame it and bring them onto the streets, not sure whether that is the plan of the government?

[soapboxqueen]

I think the plan of the government is to disrupt as much at possible so that any result can be ignored due to interference. They can then continue to deny an actual vote.

[PerkingFaintly]

Inflaming people and increasing the disruption is certainly the plan of someone else's government.

uk.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-catalonia-independence-movement-and-referendum-spain-2017-9?r=US&IR=T

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has seized on a historic independence referendum set for Sunday in the Spanish region of Catalonia, using his Twitter account to pump out a pro-separatist narrative aimed at villainizing the Spanish central government and celebrating Catalan nationalism.

Assange, for all intents and purposes, has become the independence movement's chief international spokesman. The vast majority of his tweets this month, in many cases written in Spanish and Catalan, have centered around promoting Catalan secessionism and "self-determination" as a bulwark against Madrid's "repression."

Russian news agency Sputnik has helped, too - and has taken notice of Assange's tweets.

The outlet posted 220 stories about the Catalan independence movement between September 11 and 27, according to The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, most with false or misleading headlines and a clear pro-independence bias. The outlet's headlines gave "more prominence to Assange" than either Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont or Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

"Catalan" was the third highest-trending hashtag among Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations as of this article's publication, according to Hamilton 68, a digital platform that aims to track Russian propaganda in real time.

It is unclear how many of those users are bots. But a swarm of these automated accounts has also been promoting and parroting Assange's accusations of misconduct and oppression by the Spanish central government.

"A significant part of the early amplification" of Assange's most popular tweet about Catalonia came from automated accounts, The Atlantic Council reported. The pattern has extended to his other Catalonia-related tweets, including one where he compared events in Catalonia with those on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and another where he referred to Madrid as a "banana monarchy."

[Andrewofgg]

Its the stuff civil wars are made of.

Yes, and the Americans fought the bloodiest civil war in history to establish that there is no unilateral right to secede. Too much sentimental drivel about Catalonia - spell it how you like, that's its name in English - and not enough thought about the fate of non-Catalan Spanish caught there if it was "independent" .

[PerkingFaintly]

Completely agree with everyone that heavy-handed policing and violence are just going to create a worse situation.

[BCNChica]

Our school just down the road held open day yesterday, loads of families and events in the school and people just camped out at the school last night.

Our neighbors left their apartment at 6am to vote.

Haven't heard any sirens or violence yet. One of my close friends here husband is in the Guardia Civil and he was expecting to be called in. She would have messaged me if anything big had kicked off in our neighborhood.

[BCNChica]

Apparently the local police have been called in because the mossos aren't really doing anything and just letting people get on with it. If there was trouble it's the mossos you would be worried about, those guys are like an army, you don't mess with them.

[Lokisglowstickofdestiny]

The police are now firing rubber bullets on people who want to vote - the EU are not going to do anything about this, they are an anti-democratic institution.

[BCNChica]

Yes my fiends husband has been called in. She's just said to me that people in our school are throwing chairs at policemen and the situation is getting worse by the minute

[BCNChica]

*friends

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Yes, and the Americans fought the bloodiest civil war in history to establish that there is no unilateral right to secede. Too much sentimental drivel about Catalonia - spell it how you like, that's its name in English - and not enough thought about the fate of non-Catalan Spanish caught there if it was "independent" .

Well said. If I were in Catalonia and in favour of independence having that creep Assange on my side would worry me.

Can you imagine what would have happened if riot police were deployed to stop the Scottish independence referendum?

A complete non- point. Sturgeon was told firmly she is not getting a second referendum and has accepted that (she would lose it anyway at the moment) but if she had attempted to call a second referendum it would have been unlawful. I'm not sure how matters would have panned out.

[ludothedog]

what stance will the local Police take? Will they support protesters or will they support the Police brought in to disrupt the vote?

[orlantina]

Stopping people voting on an issue does not stop people wanting to make their thoughts known on an issue.

What good does suppressing a vote with force do?

[Penny4UrThoughts]

@ludothedog my understanding is that Madrid has taken control of the Catalonia police, so their choice is limited...

[BCNChica]

Local police are the mossos. They seem to be more or less letting people get on with it.

Guardia Civil and National police have been called in. Both are national police forces.

[LurkingHusband]

Its the stuff civil wars are made of.

Well, they did have a civil war in the 20s and 30s ... I suspect the dying off of those who fought is probably why things are flaring up. After all, it can't have been that bad, surely

(Also worth noting that a lot of Brits took the anti-fascist side ..s see "Land and Freedom" by Ken Loach for a story).

A very close family friend who was a qualified lawyer (incredibly rare for a woman back then) had to get of Spain quickly in the 1930s as she was Basque.

I find a lot of people don't realise that Spain was a fascist dictatorship until 1975 when Franco died.

[RavingRoo]

If you think this is bad wait until the Basque seperatists get involved.

[MadgeMidgerson]

Yes, and the Americans fought the bloodiest civil war in history to establish that there is no unilateral right to secede

are you taking the piss? I can think of several newly created nations who unilaterally decided to secede, all in the last 30 years.

[OhtoblazeswithElvira]

I agree wih everything that you say OP.

But I draw a different parallel to the UK. Spanish politicians have been using Catalonia as a scapegoat for about 20 years - because it pays, it works, it gives them votes. But IMO this is playing with fire and once you set people against each other you are destroying a community. And that is incredibly difficult to repair.

In Spain we are seeing the result of succesive governments demonising a part of the population. We cannot kid ourselves that this is not going on in the UK