Spanish police storm polling stations to block Catalan vote

Bloomberg

Spanish police in riot gear smashed in the doors of polling stations and dragged protesters away by the
hair, beating some with batons and firing rubber bullets at others on Sunday as they tried to shut down an illegal referendum on independence in Catalonia.
Despite the force of the police against peaceful demonstrations, voting began in many locations across northeast Spain at 9 am. The Catalan government said 73 percent of polling stations were open. Spain’s representative in the region, Enric Millo, said the vote had been “dismantled.” Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said the crackdown had been an “unjustified, excessive and irresponsible use of violence.”
“It didn’t end Catalans’ desire to vote and decide freely about their future, but it has helped to answer all the questions we had to address today,” he said at a voting site near Girona that had been raided by the Civil Guard. “Today, the Spanish state lost.”
It’s unclear when or, indeed, if a result will be announced and no exit polls are planned, though those who do vote are likely to be overwhelmingly from the pro-independence camp. A non-binding vote in 2014, also held in defiance of the Spanish courts, saw 80 percent back a split from Spain on turnout of about 30 percent. In the most recent Catalan government poll in July, 35 percent of respondents said the region should become independent.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy deployed thousands of police from outside Catalonia ahead of the vote to maintain public order, with the commitment of the regional police wavering. Prosecutors will take action against the Catalan police over their refusal to stop the vote, El Pais reported.
One Catalan officer was arrested during the crackdown, Sebastian Hernandez, a spokesman for the Spanish police officers’ union, said. The Catalan policeman started kicking a National Police vehicle while officers were removing ballot boxes from a polling station in Barcelona.
“There has been no referendum nor the appearance of one,” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said in a televised statement from Madrid.
“The professionalism of the security services has had to make up
for the irresponsibility of the regional government.”
Rajoy is facing Spain’s biggest constitutional crisis since the political settlement that followed the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. That gave regional administrations control of areas such as health, education and, in Catalonia’s case, the police, within a centralised system for collecting and distributing tax revenue. Many Catalans complain they get a raw deal from that system. Yet they have no viable path to independence. Rajoy, backed up by the courts, says a referendum is unconstitutional, and any attempt to change the constitution would be blocked by Rajoy’s People’s Party.

‘State of Emergency’
Sunday’s crackdown began at about 8:45 am when police in riot gear arrived at a site in downtown Barcelona and ordered activists to leave. Surrounded by an angry crowd chanting, “Out of the way, we will vote,” officers blocked access to the public school building and pushed people away from the doors while Catalan police watched from the sidelines. The police then broke into the building and removed the ballot boxes.
One gray-haired lady had blood running down her face as she emerged from the melee, while Catalan television showed images of riot police pushing protesters down stairs and wrestling with ballot organisers and demonstrators.