Catalan Separatists Stage Strike Over Leaders Being Imprisoned
French Border Blocked as Catalan Protesters Begin General Strike
(Bloomberg) -- Pro-independence protesters blocked highways across Catalonia and led a general strike that channeled outrage at jail sentences handed down to separatist leaders earlier this week.
The AP-7 highway was closed near the town of La Jonquera at the French border, with protesters leaving nails on the road surface to puncture car tires. The AP-2 highway also was blocked near the Catalan city of Lleida further south with burning tires and mattresses, the Spanish government said.
Trains from Barcelona are operating without major delays to services and the airport is largely functioning normally, with just 55 flights canceled out of 979 scheduled, the government said.
The protest called by two unions provides another lightning rod for anger at Spanish Supreme Court sentences totaling about 100 years for nine separatist leaders who tried to engineer an unconstitutional break from Spain in 2017. The unrest is playing out against the backdrop of an election campaign that will call voters to the polling booths on Nov. 10 to choose among political parties that have struggled to agree on a common response to the upheaval.
Some protesters set fire to dumpsters and cars and others clashed violently with police this week across Catalonia, Spain’s largest regional economy and home to many multinationals. Meanwhile, protesters voiced their frustration at sentences for sedition as crowds gathered in downtown Barcelona.
“Let no one have any doubt, there will be no impunity for the vandalism that we’ve seen in the last few days in some Catalan cities,” acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said at a news conference in Brussels. There were 16 arrests last evening, acting Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
Marches from five Catalan cities converged on Barcelona Friday, swelling the number of protesters in the capital of the northeastern region. Workers at the nearby factory of Volkswagen’s Spanish unit halted production.
“The ruling is very excessive -- there are people with similar convictions who committed terrible crimes,” said Alfredo Balasch, 70, a retired farmer from the Catalan town of Tarrega.
Wrapped in a pro-independence flag and wearing a yellow hat and ribbon, he said he was puzzled by the clashes occurring in Barcelona this week. “Some demonstrators are going too far,” he said.
The head of Catalonia’s regional interior department reiterated Friday that it condemns the violent acts that have marked the protests this week against the court ruling. The strike on Friday shows the most effective way to protest the ruling is through peaceful marches, regional interior chief Miquel Buch said in televised remarks.
Here are more details of the disturbances in Catalonia:
- Marches are scheduled to converge on Barcelona’s city center with a large rally to begin at 5 p.m.
- Seat halted production at its Martorell plant near Barcelona, saying it was necessary to guarantee the safety of workers
- A 12-hour partial strike by stevedores at Barcelona’s port began at 8 a.m.
- The Spanish government reports no significant delays at Barcelona’s train station.
- Of the 55 flights cancellations at Barcelona airport, about 30 were by Vueling, a unit of International Consolidated Airlines Group
- The border road with Andorra was reportedly blocked.
- Local media reported sporadic clashes overnight between pro-independence and right-wing groups in Barcelona; police made 19 arrests and five officers were injured across the region.
Further north in Europe, Carles Puigdemont, the fugitive Catalan ex-president, presented himself to Belgian authorities who have received an order for his arrest from a Spanish judge. Puigdemont, who led the secession bid two years, was allowed to remain at liberty, his Junts per Catalunya party said on Twitter.
To contact the reporters on this story: Charlie Devereux in Madrid at cdevereux3@bloomberg.net;Thomas Gualtieri in Madrid at tgualtieri@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Todd White, Charles Penty
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