Iran Press /Europe: Masses of flag-waving demonstrators demanding Catalonia’s independence and the release from prison of separatist leaders jammed downtown Barcelona on Friday as the northeastern Spanish region endured its fifth straight night of unrest, AP reported.
Chaotic scenes of violence erupted after more than a half-million protesters, including families with children, marched in the Catalan capital, according to local police. Many were clad in pro-independence ‘estelada’ flags and shouted “Independence!” and “Freedom for political prisoners!”
Some of them had walked for three days in five massive “freedom marches” from towns across the northeastern Spanish region. They converged in Barcelona, a city of 1.6 million people, and joined students and workers who also took to the streets during a 24-hour general strike.
But at night, police resorted again to rubber bullets and, for the first time this week, to tear gas and water cannons to repel masked youths hurling cobblestones and flammable bottles, building barricades and setting dozens of bonfires with large garbage bins.
Around 400 people, roughly half of them police officers, have been injured according to regional and central authorities, and 128 arrested since separatist sentiment surged on Monday, when the Supreme Court sentenced to lengthy prison terms, nine separatist politicians and activists. The nine had led a 2017 push for independence that triggered Spain’s deepest political crisis in decades.
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