User:BallenaBlanca/Moved from Operation Anubis

Subsequently the European Commission agreed that the referendum was illegal. Its consequences and the related political situation in Catalonia has been labeled as the Catalonia crisis, and the larger situation as the 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis.

On the morning of 21 September, Jordi Sànchez, president of the pro-independence organization Catalan National Assembly, called for "peaceful resistance" against the police operation. On 23 September, people started organising and camping outside Spanish Government buildings.

The Catalan President Carles Puigdemont accused Spain of violating fundamental human rights and stated that the referendum will be held anyway. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stated that the referendum was suspended and deployed additional personnel in Catalonia, which were expected to reach 16,000 police and military police officers distributed in different Catalan cities on 1 October 2017.

23 September
On 23 September 2017 a state prosecutor asked to coordinate all police forces, including the Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra, to stop the referendum. Joaquim Forn, Minister of the Interior of Catalonia, refused to hand over the control of the Catalan forces to Spain's Central Government and later that day the Mossos d'Esquadra official Twitter account wrote: "We will continue working like we've done until now. We will exercise our powers to guarantee security and public order and be at the service of citizens."

In Lleida, the capital of the most agricultural region of Catalonia, over a thousand tractors marched in front of the Delegation of the Spanish Government, collapsing the street. The demonstration was organised by different agricultural labour unions to support the independence referendum.

The Spanish Association of Civil Guards (Asociación Española de Guardias Civiles) announced on 23 September 2017 that each police officer reallocated on Catalonia would be rewarded with 80 euros per day to compensate for the lack of time to rest.

24 September
On 24 September 2017 new demonstrations were organised in Barcelona and other Catalan cities gathering thousands of people. During the rally people shouted "We will vote!" and handed out ballot papers. The protest organisers gave some speeches while a police helicopter overflew the crowd. Carme Forcadell, the speaker of Catalonia's Parliament, told a Barcelona crowd: "I ask you to go out and vote. Vote for the future of Catalonia" and later she also said that people must resist "provocations" by the central government emphasising that Catalans are peaceful people.

That same day, the Spanish left-wing political party Podemos organised a political gathering in the city of Zaragoza, where members of several regions met with Pablo Iglesias. The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, asked for a solution to the tension through dialogue. During the gathering, 500 far-right Spanish nationalists protested outside the building and blocked the exits. The police could not intervene because most of the police in Zaragoza was deployed in Catalonia and the politicians were isolated during a few hours. During this protests the president of the Aragonese Corts, Violeta Barba, was injured by the impact of a filled plastic bottle.

25 September


On 25 September 2017 numerous police officers from all Spain left their barracks to head to Catalonia to stop the referendum. Many videos appeared on social media showing civilians of different Spanish cities cheering them and shouting slogans like: "Go for them", "Viva España" or "Viva la Guardia Civil". According to El País, 75% of all Spanish National Police officers will be deployed in Catalonia on 1 October 2017. Juan Ignacio Zoido also redeployed a riot control vehicle, equipped with a water cannon, which was used to prevent African migrants from crossing the Spanish border, from Ceuta to Catalonia.

26 September
On 26 September 2017 the Spanish Civil Guard rendered more than 140 pro-independence web pages inaccessible without previous warning, including the web page of the Catalan National Assembly (even though a few hours later a new European Union domain, .eu, was published). Other sites were replaced by a simple message which read: "This domain has been seized and will be brought before a judge".

That same day, the spokesman of Junts pel Sí, Marta Rovira, announced that the government had already sent the notifications to the supervisors of the polling places. Even though a week before 45,000 notifications were intercepted by the Spanish Police at the private company Unipost in Terrassa, she announced that the Catalan government managed to send all necessary notifications.

29 September


Even though the Spanish Government attempted to ensure that there would be no referendum, on 29 September 2017 Catalan officials displayed the ballot box design: a white opaque plastic box bearing the crest of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Puigdemont also revealed that all preparations were ready including more than 6,000 boxes in a secret place, ballot papers, and 2,000 polling stations. A poll also indicated that more than 60% of voters were expected to take part in Catalonia's independence referendum.

Later that day, the magistrate of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia, Mercedes Armas, ordered Google delete all links and applications related to the referendum. The Spanish Civil Guard entered the offices of a company that works for Google to comply with the Catalonia high court order to delete the app "On Votar 1-Oct" and that some people were held for a few hours. However, Google told CNN that, while they comply with court orders, there is no Google office in Barcelona and no Google employees were detained.

The Delegation of the Spanish Government in Catalonia also ordered an airspace ban on light aircraft and helicopters over Barcelona until October 2, even though El Prat airport will be exempt. According to the Spanish government this measure has been taken in order to ensure the safety of the population, because they expect agglomerations of people in the streets.

Again, multiple demonstrations occurred in the biggest cities of Catalonia, including important "tractorades", hundreds of tractors collapsing a street, in front of the Spanish Delegations. In the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc of Barcelona thousands gathered in a peaceful end-of-campaign rally during the night. Multiple politicians from different political parties participated in this demonstration, including Marta Pascal (PDECat), Marta Rovira (ERC), Mireia Boya (CUP), Albano Dante Fachin (Podem), Joan Josep Nuet (EUiA), and Jaume Asens (Barcelona en Comú). Various musicians and music groups also performed during the event: Obrint Pas, Lluís Llach, and finally the President of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont gave a speech about the difficulties that Catalans managed to overcome to celebrate the referendum.

30 September


On 30 September 2017, the Spanish Civil Guard raided the headquarters of two organisations that allegedly had the databases of the census for the referendum: Catalonia's Telecommunications and Information Technology Center (in Catalan Centre de Telecomunicacions i Tecnologies de la Informació or CTTI) and Catalonia's Information Security Center (in Catalan Centre de Seguretat de la Informació de Catalunya or CESICAT). The police officers confiscated several computers and deactivated 29 databases that could be used for the referendum census, preventing the extraction or insertion of data.

Later that day, Josep Lluís Trapero Álvarez published a public communiqué that said that police officers would evacuate and close all polling stations by 6 am on Sunday if nobody was there. To prevent this, different pro-independence organisations prepared a massive sleepover in front of the polling stations. By night, 60,000 people had registered online to participate in the sleepover.

1 October


The Mossos d'Esquadra received orders from the Mossos d'Esquadra Major Josep Lluís Trapero Álvarez to avoid using force and only warn people to vacate the facilities on the day of referendum and managed to close about 130 polling stations without using violence. They failed to execute the direct order issued by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia to close the voting centers before they opened and to confiscate voting materials. Due to this unexpected development the Spanish police and the Guardia Civil decided to mount operations and try to execute those orders. They intervened and raided 92 polling stations, mostly in Barcelona, after they opened. The National Police and the Guardia Civil accused the Mossos d'Esquadra of disobeying the orders to prevent the referendum and instead, complying with the directives of the politicians. This lack of coordination between the security corps provoked tensions between the agents.

The Spanish police hit voters with batons. According to the Ministry of the Interior, rubber bullets were only used against demonstrators in Barcelona's Eixample district. Wide media coverage showed both images and video of the police violence towards demonstrators and police property damage of buildings used as polling stations. The Spanish Ministry of the Interior instructed the Spanish Attorney General to investigate whether the accusations of police sexual abuse against protesters made by Ada Colau could be considered a legal offense of slander against Spanish Law enforcement organizations.

In the small town of Aiguaviva, with less than 800 inhabitants, the National Police used tear gas and batons against the voters. In the town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, after several voters were injured during a charge of the Civil Guard, a crowd threw them stones forcing them to leave the area in their police vehicles. In Sant Joan de Vilatorrada after the police charged in front of a polling station and broke the glass entrance door with a sledgehammer, a protester threw a chair and knocked an officer. The Corps of Firefighters of Catalonia tried to protect the voters forming human chains in several polling stations but the agents also used batons against them.

Overall, 893 civilians were injured according to the Catalan health ministry, and 431 members of the National Police Corps and the Guardia Civil were injured according to the Spanish interior ministry. Civilians who requested the services of the Catalan emergency health service include people with irritation by gas and and anxiety attacks. Of those injured, most were minor, but four people were hospitalized by the emergency health service and of those two were in serious condition: A 70 year old person suffered a heart attack and that was not part of the protests and another that did participate and was struck by a rubber ball on the eye. 39 agents required immediate medical treatment and the remaining 392 had injuries by bruises, scrapes, kicks and bites. The Catalan Ministry of Education calculated that the damage inflicted by the police raids to schools and hospitals, which were used as polling stations, will cost 314,000 euros to fix.

Various media reported on fake images of police violence against civilians that were posted in social networks. They included images of people injured in other events. Among them was an image of a young man from Madrid in 2012, who had a bleeding wound on his head, as well as images of protests against austerity on 29 May 2013 in Tarragona, Turkish police charges, and protesting miners. The news sites Okdiario and Periodista Digital were also accused of falsely trying to discredit some of those involved in police violence episodes, such as an old woman who was mistakenly identified as having been photographed together with Arnaldo Otegi and dubbed her as a "fan of the terrorists" in Twitter.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont condemned the crackdown, saying that "police brutality will shame forever the Spanish state". Puigdemont, who was being followed by a police helicopter, was expected to vote at Sant Julià de Ramis (Girona), where numerous Spanish police officers forced their way in early in the morning to prevent him from doing so. To be able to vote, his bodyguards suggested Puigdemont to switch cars in a tunnel, and by doing so he managed to vote in Cornella del Terri. Several other polling stations where public figures had to vote were also raided, for example the buildings where Carme Forcadell or the Mayor of Sabadell was registered.

The Mossos d'Esquadra are being investigated for disobedience of the orders of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia to prevent the referendum. Josep Lluís Trapero Álvarez, the Mossos d'Esquadra Major, is being investigated for sedition by the Spanish National Court.