A protest full of colour

Var­i­ous pro-in­de­pen­dence or­gan­i­sa­tions yes­ter­day aimed to pro­vide a re­sponse to the events or­gan­ised by the Jusapol as­so­ci­a­tion, rep­re­sent­ing mem­bers of the Span­ish po­lice and the Guardia Civil, to pay trib­ute to the of­fi­cers who took part in the po­lice crack­down of the in­de­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum on Oc­to­ber 1.

The first protest aim­ing to dis­rupt the Jusapol demon­stra­tion took place in Barcelona’s Sant Jaume square, de­spite the Cata­lan in­te­rior min­istry sug­gest­ing the pro­test­ers move to an­other site.

It was here that the first en­coun­ters with the Cata­lan po­lice took place, with the Mossos d’Es­quadra cre­at­ing a cor­don and baton charg­ing the crowd to pre­vent the pro­test­ers from reach­ing the Jusapol demon­stra­tion, which was mak­ing its way to Catalunya square.

The protest began with fire­works and paint rem­i­nis­cent of an In­dian holi fes­ti­val thrown on the riot po­lice and their ve­hi­cles, while pro­test­ers tried to get to Catalunya square to dis­rupt the po­lice demon­stra­tion that also in­cluded mem­bers of the Ciu­tadans po­lit­i­cal party and the far-right VOX party.

The mo­ments of most ten­sion took place at the top of the Ram­bles, near Catalunya square, with the Cata­lan po­lice baton charg­ing the crowds, leav­ing 25 peo­ple in­jured, while six peo­ple, all in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers, were ar­rested.

The far-left, pro-in­de­pen­dence CUP party, which was in­volved in or­gan­is­ing the protests, called for the res­ig­na­tion of pres­i­dent Quim Torra and in­te­rior min­is­ter Miquel Buch for al­low­ing a demon­stra­tion that “cel­e­brated the re­pres­sion on Oc­to­ber 1.”