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ARCHIVED - A million protesters expected in Barcelona as Catalan separatists call a general strike
Fewer violent incidents on Thursday night but major disruption in Catalunya on Friday
After three nights of escalating violence in the major cities of Catalunya following the prison sentences decided upon for leading members of the separatists movement Thursday evening was a good deal quieter in Barcelona, but there are fears that this may have been just a brief calm before the storm as the pro-independence movement has called a mass strike to protest over the verdicts on Friday 18th October.
On Thursday evening more fires were lit in the streets although the protests did not spill over into rioting and “only” 18 people are reported to have been injured and 19 arrested. The police were required to intervene in clashes, but these were mainly between the kind of extremist demonstrators belonging to the kind of far right- and left-wing groups which attend demonstrations wearing hoods and scarves to hide their faces in the expectation of causing trouble. Thus, when one group begins to direct neo-Nazi and pro-Franco chants at another proclaiming the independence of Catalunya, violence is inevitable and the Mossos d’Esquadra (the regional police force of Catalunya) are obliged to separate them.
On Friday, though, the Mossos are reportedly expecting up to a million demonstrators to take to the streets. Already in the early hours of the morning barricades had been erected on the AP-7 motorway in Girona and the AP-2 in Lleida, protesters had managed to close the border with France at some locations, 42 flights had been cancelled due to the strike at the airport of Barcelona-El Prat and minimum services were being offered on public transport in Barcelona. Protesters had occupied the AVE high-speed rail station in Girona, and various universities had announced that they would effectively be closed for the day, some of them appearing to react more to the demands of the students than to those of the teaching staff.
This is the fourth general strike called in Catalunya in under two years since the universal declaration of independence from Spain in the regional parliament and the subsequent imposition of direct rule from Madrid. Five columns of marchers set out on Wednesday from different points in the region (Gerona, Vic, Berga, Tárrega and Tarragona) to converge in Barcelona on Friday prior to the main demonstration, which is scheduled to begin at 17.00.
Meanwhile, Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president who was at the centre of events in 2017, remains a free man in his self-imposed exile in Belgium, where on Friday morning he appeared as requested in front of the Belgian public prosecution service following the re-issuing of a European detention warrant by the Spanish courts.
Sr Puigdemont fled Spain in late October two years ago to avoid arrest and was asked to present himself to the authorities as a formality but has been allowed free on the grounds that there is no indication that he is likely to flee Belgium. The procedure which may lead to his being extradited and brought to trial in Spain, where he would face the same charges as those who received sentences of between 9 and 13 years in prison on Monday, now resume, with the former president having expressed to the Belgian authorities his desire not to be forced to return to Spain at present.
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