Hundreds Injured as Spanish Police Clash with Defiant Voters in Catalonia - NBC News
Hundreds Injured as Spanish Police Clash with Defiant Voters in Catalonia - NBC News
by SAPHORA SMITH and MATT BRADLEY
BARCELONA, Spain — Hundreds were injured as armed police descended on some polling stations in Catalonia Sunday as defiant voters attempted to take part in a banned referendum on independence from Madrid.
Over 460 people were injured in Catalonia, Barcelona's Mayor Ada Colau said on Twitter at around 4:45 p.m. local time (10:45 a.m. ET).
Colau said that as mayor she demanded "an immediate end to police charges against the defenseless population."
"I call for a halt to the police actions that are taking place in our city at this very moment immediately because it is unacceptable that the police should be thrown against a populace that has mobilized to exercise its right to vote, that is behaving absolutely peacefully and is defenseless," she told reporters, according to a clip posted and translated by the Barcelona City Council on Twitter.
Jordi Turull, the spokesman for Catalonia's pro-independence government, said earlier that more than 300 people had been injured in clashes with Spanish police. While Spain’s interior ministry tweeted shortly after 1 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) that people had thrown objects at officers, and that so far nine policemen and two civil guards had been injured.
One person is in a critical condition at a hospital in Lleida, a town in western Catalonia, a spokesperson from the hospital confirmed.
In the region of Girona, Spanish officers scuffled with angry voters before smashing their way into a school being used as a polling station and seizing ballot boxes as voting began.
by SAPHORA SMITH and MATT BRADLEY
BARCELONA, Spain — Hundreds were injured as armed police descended on some polling stations in Catalonia Sunday as defiant voters attempted to take part in a banned referendum on independence from Madrid.
Over 460 people were injured in Catalonia, Barcelona's Mayor Ada Colau said on Twitter at around 4:45 p.m. local time (10:45 a.m. ET).
Colau said that as mayor she demanded "an immediate end to police charges against the defenseless population."
"I call for a halt to the police actions that are taking place in our city at this very moment immediately because it is unacceptable that the police should be thrown against a populace that has mobilized to exercise its right to vote, that is behaving absolutely peacefully and is defenseless," she told reporters, according to a clip posted and translated by the Barcelona City Council on Twitter.
Jordi Turull, the spokesman for Catalonia's pro-independence government, said earlier that more than 300 people had been injured in clashes with Spanish police. While Spain’s interior ministry tweeted shortly after 1 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) that people had thrown objects at officers, and that so far nine policemen and two civil guards had been injured.
One person is in a critical condition at a hospital in Lleida, a town in western Catalonia, a spokesperson from the hospital confirmed.
In the region of Girona, Spanish officers scuffled with angry voters before smashing their way into a school being used as a polling station and seizing ballot boxes as voting began.
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