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LARGE NUMBERS OF Catalans are expected to observe a general strike today to condemn police violence at a banned weekend referendum on independence, as Madrid comes under growing international pressure to resolve its worst political crisis in decades.
Flights and train services could be disrupted as well as port operations, after unions called for the stoppage to “vigorously condemn” the police response to the poll, in which Catalonia’s leader said 90% of voters backed independence from Spain.
Barcelona’s public universities are expected to join the strike, as is the contemporary art museum, football club FC Barcelona and the Sagrada Familia, the basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi and one of the city’s most popular tourist sites.
“I am convinced that this strike will be widely followed,” Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said ahead of the protest.
The central government has vowed to stop the wealthy northeastern region, which accounts for a fifth of Spain’s GDP, breaking away from Spain and has dismissed Sunday’s poll as unconstitutional and a “farce”.
Violent scenes played out in towns and cities across the region on Sunday as riot police moved in on polling stations to stop people from casting their ballots, in some cases charging with batons and firing rubber bullets to disperse crowds.
UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said he was “very disturbed” by the unrest while EU President Donald Tusk urged Madrid to avoid “further use of violence”.
The European Parliament will hold a special debate on tomorrow on the issue.
“We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue. Violence can never be an instrument in politics,” European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said, breaking weeks of virtual EU silence on the Catalan issue.
Residents in many cities briefly stopped work at midday yesterday and descended onto the streets in silent, solemn protest.
In Barcelona, municipal police said about 15,000 people stopped traffic as they rallied, many draped in the blue, yellow and red Estelada flag used by Catalan separatists, shouting “the streets will always be ours”.
“This was the norm under Franco!” the crowd chanted, referring to former dictator Francisco Franco whose 1939-75 regime repressed Catalan language and culture.
Emergency talks
The government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy held emergency talks after Puigdemont declared Sunday that Catalonia had “won the right to an independent state”.
Puigdemont has appealed for international mediation to help solve the crisis and called for police deployed to Catalonia from other parts of Spain for the vote to be removed.
The regional government said 2.26 million people took part in the poll, or just over 42% of the electorate.
But any attempt to unilaterally declare independence is likely to be opposed not just by Madrid but also a large section of the Catalan population, a region of 7.5 million people that is deeply split on the issue.
Puigdemont has said he will now present the results to the region’s parliament, where separatist lawmakers hold a majority, and which has the power to adopt a motion of independence.
The Catalan leader said close to 900 people had received medical attention, though regional authorities confirmed a total of 92 injured. Four were hospitalised, two in serious condition.
Videos posted on social media showed police dragging voters from polling stations by their hair, throwing people down stairs and attacking Catalan firefighters protecting polling stations.
Magdalena Clarena Dabant, a 70-year-old grandmother, described a “brutal” incident when she decided to join “passive resistance” in her village to prevent the Guardia Civil police from seizing a ballot box.
“To stop them, many voters sat on the floor, I sat on a chair. They told me to go away, I responded I wouldn’t move.
They grabbed me by the arm, strongly, and I fell on the floor. In hospital they told me I had the wrist broken.
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One unintended consequence of Brexit is that dozens of English news stories keep wandering across the pond.
That, or there’s a Journal.co.uk and I’ve accidentally found my way onto it…
@jamesdecay:
and accurate reporting would help.
“In his interview with BBC Radio 4 following his nomination, Moore spoke of his support for Brexit…”
That should be Boycott, unless Moore has since become a man and took over from Boycott in the interview.
@The Quare Fella: I’m going to give the UK Journal some leeway. They must be terribly overworked and understaffed…
It happened 21 years ago, he was punished by the courts. Move on..
@Paul O’Sullivan: yes move on…. and don’t honour the man with a knighthood… leave him in the shadows where he belongs
@Paul O’Sullivan: eh, the reason for his knighthood is also quite a long time ago. Even further back actually. Makes your argument a bit redundant.
@Dave O’Keeffe: I couldn’t give a flying f#£k if he got a knighthood. My argument is a third party interfering in a man’s life
@Paul O’Sullivan: as a 3rd party if very much sounds like he interfered in his victims life
@Paul O’Sullivan: You didn’t think this all the way through huh? Shocker.
“…Boycott pinned Moore down in a hotel room and punched her in the face 20 times before checking out and leaving her to pay the bill.”
@Smidgen Dublin: horrific
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: It would be if it were true. It’s difficult to prove you’re innocent when you’ve someone trying to blackmail you.
I give him the benefit of the doubt.
@bopter: I give her the benefit of the doubt based on the photos of her injuries produced in court evidence.
@bopter: He was convicted in a French court of law. And the excuse that in France you are guilty until proven innocent is both feeble and untrue; they also have the presumption of innocence. The only proof of her alleged blackmail is him whinging about it while calling a female BBC interviewer ‘love’.
@Smidgen Dublin: That was Moore’s testimony which Boycott has always refuted.
It’s a fact that this woman was in severe financial difficulties at the time and Boycott alleged that she was trying to blackmail him for £1 million.
Apart from this incident Boycott has no history of violence or abuse whatsoever. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent but the violence described in this case would point to a man incapable of holding his temper.
Finally, the French justice system is weighted in favour of the alleged victim. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply under the Napoleonic code (as far as I’m aware, that could have changed over time).
@Will: Scratch that last bit, a common misconception apparently that would be superseded by the UN declaration on Human Rights anyway.
@Will: What’s ails you? I feel sorry for you. You can’t beat a woman. Ever.
@Smidgen Dublin: Really, ever? You see a women beating your child you do nothing? A woman is beating your elderly parent? Your wife? A gang of women beating a man to death? Any defenseless being being beaten by a woman? The Woman is 6ft and 21 stone and man 5ft2 and 10 stone and she is beating him he should just take it?
@Craic_a_tower: What’s wrong with you? Why is meeting violence with violence the only resolution you see here?
@Will: I guess Will is a woman beater going by his defense of this guy.
@Craic_a_tower: you sure have a lot of fantasies about beating woman.
@Smidgen Dublin: Why are you exaggerating and suggesting women are always weak and physical intervention should never happen. If you saw a man beating a women would you not physically intervene? Are you saying you would just politely ask him to stop? I never said anything about being violent I asked you what you would do and you didn’t answer
@Craic_a_tower: I suggested nothing of the sort about women. No-one has to answer you.
@Smidgen Dublin: Well you said no man should beat a women ever why? Regardless of gender physically intervention may be required. If you don’t want to answer then don’t answer at all. Nice to have an opinion if you never have to explain it but state to everybody else.
@Craic_a_tower: Yes it is. Thank you.
Beats me why anyone deserves a Knighthood for playing Cricket. Also Theresa May might have been better to err on the side of caution and leave him out. Just make him another tin of buns Theresa.
@Aine O Connor: Chocolate Brownies to be precise.
@Aine O Connor: who, he beats you?
@Aine O Connor: You don’t think Sir Richard Hadlee deserved a knighthood?!
Two lovely black eyes
O what a surprise
Only for telling a man he was wrong
Two lovely black eyes
Song by charles coburn
1910
Puts the ‘false accusations ruin lives’ shite into perspective when you see that even a conviction doesn’t do anything to this pr**k.
Everyone, let’s boycott boycott!!!
On the one hand, he punched a woman in the face twenty times. But on the other hand, he ran up and down on a cricket field a lot. So, you know, two sides.
And I genuinely thought that stuff like domestic abuse is a requirement for knighthood.
have your say