Protests held in support of Catalonia referendum

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After police detained Catalan officials ahead of an independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid, protests have broken out in Madrid and Barcelona despite the Spanish prime minister's calls to stop the “escalation."

Protests in Madrid on Wednesday. /AFP Photo

Tension continued to rise in the Catalan region of Spain on Wednesday following a series of police operations directed against the organization of the Catalan Independence referendum.

The referendum is scheduled for October 1 but the Spanish Constitutional Court has slammed it as illegal.

A total of 14 government officials, the majority of whom are from the team of Catalan deputy leader Oriol Junqueras, were arrested by Civil Guard, who also searched 22 different buildings.

News of the arrests sparked protests in Barcelona, with thousands of people congregating outside the Department of the Economy building in the center of the city, where the wheels of some Civil Guard cars were punctured, despite appeals from Ezquerra Republicana deputy Joan Tarda for protesters to behave in a "democratic" manner.

Protests in Barcelona on Wednesday./AFP Photo

The Civil Guard also on the day seized around nine million ballot papers apparently scheduled to be used in the referendum from a warehouse on an industrial estate in Bigues I Riells, close to Barcelona, while left-wing Catalan nationalist party CUP tweeted that their headquarters were surrounded by National Police.

Catalan regional President Carles Puigdemont denounced the actions as the Spanish government "suspending the self-government" of the Catalan region and that Madrid has "crossed the red line that separates them from repression.”

Source(s): AFP ,Xinhua News Agency