Spaniards rally against Catalans

Barcelona: Protesters flocked to Barcelona on Sunday wrapped in Spanish flags to rally against plans by separatist leaders to declare Catalonia independent following a banned secession referendum.

Catalans calling themselves a “silent majority” opposed to leaving Spain broke their silence after a week of mounting anxiety over Spain’s worst political crisis in a generation.

Hundreds of people gathered on the city’s Urquinaona square waving red and yellow flags and singing “Viva Espana”.

“We have perhaps been silent too long,” Alejandro Marcos, 44, told AFP.

“It seems that the one who yells the most wins the argument. So we have to raise our voices and say loud and clear that we do not want independence.”

Some protesters called for the region’s separatist president Carles Puigdemont to go to jail for holding a vote on independence in defiance of the Spanish government and courts.

“The unity of Spain cannot be voted on or negotiated — it must be defended,” read one sign in the crowd. Recent polls had indicated that Catalans are split on independence, though leaders said the violence during the referendum turned many against the state authorities.

Sunday’s rally came exactly one week after the contested vote that has triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in a generation. The Barcelona protest, organised by the Societat Civil Catalana, the main anti-independence group in Catalonia. The slogan for the rally is: “Enough, lets recover good sense!” On Saturday tens of thousands of demonstrators, many dressed in white, hit the streets of Madrid and other cities across Spain to demand dialogue to end the dispute.

Tensions soared after police cracked down on voters during the banned October 1 independence referendum, prompting separatist leaders to warn they would unilaterally declare independence in days. Tentative signs emerged Friday that the two sides may be seeking to defuse the crisis after Madrid offered a first apology to Catalans injured by police during the vote.

But uncertainty still haunts the country as Catalan leaders have not backed off from plans to declare the region independent. Mr Puigdemont is scheduled to address the regional parliament on Tuesday evening.

It remains unclear what he plans to say, although some separatist leaders hope he will use the opportunity to make a declaration of independence.

PM Rajoy in the interview assured Catalan leaders that there “is still time” to backtrack and avoid triggering a tough response from the central government in Madrid.

With its own language and cultural traditions, demands for independence in Catalonia date back centuries but have surged during recent years of economic difficulty.

Angelo Rossini Calvo, 38, said he planned to attend the protest in Barcelona because he felt the separatist lawmakers did not have a big enough majority in the Catalan parliament to justify the referendum.