BARCELONA: A total of 761 people needed assistance from Catalonia’s Medical Emergency Systems, according to the Catalan department of health, The Guardian reported.

A total of 335 have been hurt in Barcelona alone after Spanish riot police fired rubber bullets and forced their way into activist-held polling stations in Catalonia on Sunday as thousands flooded the streets to vote in an independence referendum banned by Madrid.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, in a press conference, said ‘no referendum has been held in Catalonia today’.

The large majority of Catalonia did not want to participate in today’s referendum and they had obeyed the law, he added.

In Barcelona, people gathered to watch Rajoy’s speech on a big screen. When he said that the majority of people had not wanted to participate in the referendum, the crowd reacted with derision and anger.

The Catalan government’s pollster recently found that 70% wanted a referendum on the territory’s future, although support for independence is only 41%.

“Spanish democracy faces its greatest challenge,” headlined top-selling El Pais daily just hours before police moved in en masse to seal off polling stations and seize ballot boxes, sparking scuffles as they sought to block the vote.

More than 5.3 million people have been called upon to have their say on independence from Spain in the wealthy northeastern region which has its own distinct language and culture.

The referendum poses the question: “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”

But it has been ruled unconstitutional by the central government and the courts, with judicial officials ordering police to seize ballot papers, detain key organisers and shut down websites promoting the vote.

Thousands of Spanish police fanned out across the region on Sunday, forcing their way into polling stations.

´Unjustified violence´

In central Barcelona, riot police charged at demonstrators who were sitting on the ground blocking their way after they raided a polling station at a school, witnesses said.

They said police also fired rubber bullets, with one man showing AFP a leg injury he suffered.

The crackdown drew a sharp rebuke from Catalan leaders.

“The unjustified use of violence, which is both irrational and irresponsible, by the Spanish state will not stop the will of the Catalan people,” Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said.

The police, he said, had used “batons, rubber bullets and indiscriminate force” against people demonstrating “peacefully”.

“The head of a cowardly government has flooded our city with police,” Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau wrote on Twitter, adding: “Barcelona city of peace, we are not afraid” — a slogan coined after August´s jihadist rampage that killed 16 people.

As voting opened

The Catalan government had scheduled voting to open at 9am (0700 GMT) at around 2,300 designated stations, but Madrid said on Saturday it had shut more than half of them.

Voting started at some sites in the region on Sunday after people had occupied them with the aim of preventing police from locking them down. Organisers smuggled in ballot boxes before dawn and urged voters to use passive resistance against police.

Catalan leaders vowed to press ahead with the vote despite Spanish attempts to thwart preparations, including the seizure of ballot papers and boxes, and it said it would give an estimate of the early turn-out later in the morning.

The Catalan government said voters could print out ballot papers at home and lodge them at any polling station not closed down by police.

“I have got up early because my country needs me,” said Eulalia Espinal, a 65-year-old pensioner who started queuing with around 100 others outside one polling station, a Barcelona school, in rain at about 5am (0300 GMT).

“We don’t know what’s going to happen but we have to be here,” she said.

Organisers had asked voters to turn out before dawn, hoping for large crowds to be the world’s first image of voting day.

“This is a great opportunity. I’ve waited 80 years for this,” said 92-year-old Ramon Jordana, a former taxi driver waiting to vote in Sant Pere de Torello, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees and a pro-independence bastion.

He had wrapped his wrists in Catalan flags, among 100-150 people who gathered at a local school that had been listed as a polling station, ready to block any police from entering. A tractor also stood guard, though no police had yet arrived.

Leading up to the referendum, Spanish police arrested Catalan officials, seized campaigning leaflets and occupied the Catalan government’s communications hub.

 

But Catalan leaders urged voters to turn out in a peaceful expression of democracy. Families have occupied scores of schools earmarked as voting centres, sleeping overnight in an attempt to prevent police from sealing them off.

If some voting goes ahead, a “yes” result is likely, given that many unionists are not expected to turn out.

“If I can’t vote, I want to turn out in the streets and say sincerely that we want to vote,” said independence supporter Jose Miro, a 60-year-old schools inspector.

The pro-independence Catalan leader originally said that if the “yes” vote won, the Catalan government would declare independence within 48 hours, but regional leaders have since acknowledged Madrid’s crackdown has undermined the vote.

Markets have reacted cautiously but calmly to the situation so far, though credit rating agency S&P said on Friday that protracted tensions in Catalonia could hurt Spain’s economic outlook. The region accounts for about a fifth of the economy.

The ballot will have no legal status as it has been blocked by Spain’s Constitutional Court, and Madrid has the ultimate power under its 1978 charter to suspend the regional government’s authority to rule if it declares independence.

The Madrid government, which has sent thousands of police to Catalonia to enforce a court ban on the vote, believes it has done enough to prevent any meaningful referendum taking place.

A minority of around 40 percent of Catalans support independence, polls show, although a majority want to hold a referendum on the issue. The region of 7.5 million people has an economy larger than that of Portugal.