Showing posts with label Catalan police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catalan police. Show all posts

Sunday, October 1, 2017

"This Is Fascism": Shocking Footage Of Spanish Police Firing Rubber Bullets, Brutally Beating Peaceful Voters

Update (12:30 pm ET): Clashes between riot police and voters in Barcelona and other towns and cities across Catalonia have left hundreds injured as police beat peaceful demonstrators with sticks and fired rubber bullets into crowds. The clashes, which have been well-documented by journalists and members of the public, are resulting in a massive public embarassment for the government in Madrid, as photos of elderly Catalonian pensioners with blood streaming down their faces have flooded the internet.


According to the Catalonian health ministry, 465 people have been injured during today"s demonstrations, including at least nine local police officers and three Civil Guard officers. Here"s a breakdown via the Guardian: 216 were hurt in Barcelona, 80 in Girona, 64 in Lleida, 53 in Terres de l’Ebre, 27 in Catalunya central and 25 in Tarragona.


Despite the crackdown, the Guardian reports that the majority of polling stations in the province have remained open. Spanish national police have closed down 46 in total (27 in Barcelona, six in Tarragona, six in Girona and seven in Lleida). The Guardia Civil have closed another 46 (14 in Barcelona, 12 in Tarragona, eight in Girona and 12 in Lleida). Catalan police, the Mossos, say they have closed 244 polling stations across Catalonia. In total, 336 polling stations have been shuttered. To put this in context, the Catalan government said more than 2,000 polling stations were set up across the province for the referendum. Meanwhile, the Spanish government said that three people, including one girl, have been arrested for civil disobedience and attacking officers.


The shocking photos have provoked widespread condemnation. In the UK, Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn urged Prime Minister Theresa May to urge Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy to end the crackdown.



A solidarity march with Catalonia is taking place outside the European Union offices in Edinburgh.



All elements of Catalonian society have pitched in to try and protect voters from brutal police tactics. This video emerged showing Catalonian firemen being beaten with sticks by the police.



The Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, has demanded that the government in Madrid put an end to the violence.



According to the FT, police confiscated voting papers and ballot boxes in Barcelona and elsewhere and fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds at the Ramon Llull school in Barcelona, a polling station in the city.. However, elsewhere in Catalonia, voting was carried out peacefully with the 17,000-strong local police force apparently being less interventionist in stopping the polling at certain stations. Since there is no electoral commission overseeing the referendum, little authoritative information was immediately available on the turnout for the vote and how it complied with normal standards. Police were ordered to shut down the region"s electronic vote-counting system earlier in the week, meaning it could be a while before the results start coming in.


* * *


Update (10:30 am ET): The number of people injured in clashes between pro-independence voters and riot police dispatched to the restive region by the government in Madrid has climbed to 337, including at least 11 police officers, the Daily Star reports.


* * *


Update (10 am ET): In a statement condeming the Spanish government"s efforts to stamp out the "free expression" of the Catalan people, FC Barcelona announced that it will be playing today"s match against Las Palmas, its first of the season, behind closed doors after the Professional Football League refused to postpone it.



* * *


Update (9:15 am ET): So far, Catalonian emergency services says that 91 people have been injured in violent clashes between Catalonians trying to vote in today"s "illegal" independence, according to AFP.



Among the injured, 11 are police officers.



* * *


In scenes one would expect to see in Turkey, or some token third-world dictatorship, on Sunday morning Spanish riot police violently cracked down on the scheduled Catalan independence referendum, smashing their way into polling stations in Catalonia in a dramatic quest to shut down the banned Catalan independence referendum, as they fired rubber bullets and brutally beat peaceful people trying to vote for or against independence from a Spanish government, which many commentators this morning have called "fascist."










Police fired rubber bullets in central Barcelona, El Periodico newspaper reported, at the intersection of two streets as violence erupted during the vote which has thrown Spain into its worst constitutional crisis for decades.






According to Reuters, Catalan emergency services said at least 38 people were hurt as a result of police action, although as the footage below shows the final number will likely be orders of magnitude greater. 


As Conflicts creator Gissur Simonarson said, "Looking at the footage from Spain. It"s clear the policy got an order to break this up by any means. They are tossing ppl like rag dolls" adding that "The Spanish government has managed to turn me from indifferent/against #CatalanReferendum to a supporter."



Police burst into the polling station in a town in Girona province minutes before Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was due to vote there. They smashed glass panels to force open the door as voters, fists in the air, sang the Catalan anthem.



Officers with riot shields jostled with hundreds of voters outside one station at a school in Barcelona as the crowd chanted “We are people of peace!” Armored vans and an ambulance were parked nearby.




The referendum has been declared illegal by Spain’s central government in Madrid, which says the constitution states the country is indivisible and has drafted in thousands of police from around Spain into Catalonia to prevent the vote.


The Catalan regional government had scheduled voting to open at 9 a.m. (0700 GMT) at around 2,300 stations, but Madrid said on Saturday it had shut more than half of them.  Voting started at some sites in the region of 7.5 million people, which has its own language and culture and is an industrial hub with an economy larger than that of Portugal. Leader Puigdemont changed plans and voted at a different station after the police action, the regional government said.


As Reuters adds, people had occupied some stations with the aim of preventing police from locking them down. Organizers smuggled in ballot boxes before dawn and urged voters to use passive resistance against police. In a school used as a polling station in Barcelona, police in riot gear carried out ballot boxes while would-be voters chanted “out with the occupying forces!” and “we will vote!”.




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, 65, a pensioner who started queuing with around 100 others outside one polling station, a Barcelona school, in rain at about 5 a.m. “We don’t know what’s going to happen but we have to be here,” she said.


A minority of around 40 percent of Catalans support independence, polls show, although a majority want to hold a referendum on the issue. A “yes” result is likely in the referendum, given most of those who support independence are expected to cast ballots while most of those against it are not. 


Furthermore, 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. In other words, Madrid could have led the referendum pass, declared it illegal, and soon most would forget. Instead, as Simonarson adds, "I"m shocked and disgusted by how Spain has dealt with #CatalanReferendum. If there isn"t a violent response to this, I"ll be shocked."


Organizers 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.


As reported before, 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 centers, sleeping overnight in an attempt to prevent police from sealing them off.





“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. Only the Catalan police, or Mossos d‘Esquadra, had so far been monitoring polling stations. They are held in affection by Catalans, especially after they hunted down Islamists accused of staging deadly attacks in the region in August.



But national police, who have been drafted into Catalonia in their thousands, stepped in to grab ballot boxes and close stations on Sunday once it became clear the regional police was not clearing sites.



Pro-independence Puigdemont 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.


Perhaps now it is time for the liberal press to explain how sometimes democracy also dies in broad daylight. And while we await to see how this dramatic crackdown against democracy ends, here are some more shocking videos of Spain"s brutal crackdown on democracy.














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Friday, September 29, 2017

Catalonia Bonds Collapse As Police Warn Of Chaos If Referendum Canceled

While the Catalan people prepare to decide whether to break with Spain, the bond market appears to have already made its mind up as Catalonia bonds decouple from Spanish sovereign yields.


Catalonia Bonds expiring next year have seen yields spike over 2% - the highest in over a year - and more than 230bps higher than the equivalent Spanish sovereign bond yields...



As The FT reports, in a special report released earlier this week, Rabobank’s Maartje Wijffelaars warned that “the relationship between Madrid and Barcelona has exponentially worsened in the past months, and it’s unclear how to put the genie back in the bottle”.


And judging by the Catalan police concerns, this will get a lot worse before it gets any better...



As France24 reports, Catalan police warned Wednesday that public disorder may erupt as Spain orders the authorities to seal polling stations and stop the region holding a referendum on independence.


Late on Tuesday, Catalonia"s chief prosecutor ordered the force to seal off buildings that will house polling stations before Sunday"s referendum which Madrid has declared illegal.


 


But such a step "could lead to undesirable consequences," the Mossos d"Esquadra warned in a posting on Twitter on Wednesday.


 


"These consequences refer to public security and to the more than foreseeable risk of a disruption of public order that this may generate."


 


The prosecutor also ordered police to deploy officers on the day of the ballot to prevent people from voting.


 


The order puts intense pressure on the regional police who are caught between their loyalty to local Catalan leaders who are pushing ahead with the referendum and their pledge to uphold the law.



Ignacio Gonzalez, a spokesman for Judges for Democracy, said it was "feasible" for police to seal polling stations.


"The problem is the unrest that this could cause," he told AFP.



Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria accused Catalan separatists of seeking to end "the years of democratic stability for which our parents fought".


"We are perhaps living in an unprecedented historical moment because of the determination of certain separatists to deny centuries of shared history between Spaniards," she told parliament.



Madrid"s opposition to the Catalan independence referendum drew a sharp rebuke from the Basque separatist group ETA, which released a statement accusing the state of being "a prison for the people".


As The FT concludes, few observers are expecting Catalonia to actually become independent even if, as expected, the “yes” side wins on Sunday, with a more likely outcome seen to be an increase in autonomy for the region.


Still, Ms Wijffelaars suggested “the negotiation period is set to take a long time and with the ultimate risk of unilaterally declared independence, uncertainty will linger in markets”.


Analysts at Citi agreed that uncertainty is unlikely to go away, noting that “the risk of even larger confrontations between the two sides post-referendum is rising”:


In the long-run …solving the Catalan challenge may require more fiscal autonomy for the region and possibly allowing a formal self-determination referendum. With both overwhelmingly opposed by the rest of the country, we fear a solution remains years away.










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Sunday, September 24, 2017

Spain In Crisis: Catalan Police Reject Madrid Takeover, Vow To "Resist"

Spain found itself on the verge of a full-blown sovereign crisis on Saturday, after the "rebel region" of Catalonia rejected giving more control to the central government in defiance of authorities in Madrid who are trying to suppress an independence referendum on Oct. 1.


As tensions rise ahead of the planned Catalan referendum on October 1, and as Madrid"s crackdown on separatist passions took a turn for the bizarre overnight when as we reported Spain’s plan to send boatloads of military police to Catalonia to halt the referendum backfired with dockers in two ports staging a boycott and refused access, on Saturday Spain"s Public Prosecutor"s Office told Catalan Police chief Josep Lluis Trapero that his officers must now obey orders from a senior state-appointed police coordinator, Spanish news agency EFE reported on Saturday.


The Catalan Police, however, disagreed and as Bloomberg reports, the SAP union - the largest trade group for the 17,000-member Catalan Police, known as Mossos d"Esquadra - said it would resist hours after prosecutors Saturday ordered that it accept central-government coordination. The rejection echoed comments by Catalan separatist authorities.


“We don’t accept this interference of the state, jumping over all existing coordination mechanisms,” the region’s Interior Department chief Joaquim Forn said in brief televised comments. “The Mossos won’t renounce exercising their functions in loyalty to the Catalan people.”


The Mossos are one of the symbols of Catalonia’s autonomy and for many Catalans the prosecutor’s decision may be reminiscent of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship of Francisco Franco, when the Mossos were abolished.


In a joint press conference today with the Catalan home affairs minister Joaquim Forn and the Mossos chief Josep Lluís Trapero, Forn said that the move by Spain was "unacceptable".


“We denounce the Spanish government’s will of seizing the Mossos, as they did with Catalonia"s finances" Forn said adding that that "the Catalan government does not accept this interference, it bypasses all the institutions that the current legal framework already has in place to guarantee the security of Catalonia." Additionally, Trapero expressed his intention to not accept the measure, which he described as "interference by the state", and also warned that "it skips over all the bodies of the legal framework to coordinate the security of Catalonia".



Catalan minister Joaquim Forn (L) with Mossos chief Josep Lluís Trapero


Earlier on Saturday, El Pais reported that Civil Guard Colonel Diego Perez de los Cobos, chief of staff of the Interior Ministry’s security department, was named by a prosecutor to coordinate the efforts of the Civil Guard, the National Police and the local Mossos.  Spanish media reported unnamed Home Office sources as saying the measure did not mean withdrawing any powers from the Mossos formally, but rather requiring them to submit to a joint coordination operation to stop the Catalan referendum taking place on October 1.


However, shortly after the reshuffling, Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero rejected giving up control to the central government during a meeting with the heads of the other police forces on Saturday, adding that all possible legal challenges would be studied. According to La Vanguardia Trapero "protested at that meeting about the decision to impose central government control" on the regional police force.


Also on Saturday morning, as the police meeting in Barcelona took place, the regional interior minister, Forn, published a defiant message on Twitter: "We will encounter many difficulties. The state wants to take control of our self-government, but they will not stop us! #HelloRepublic".



Ironically, as Bloomberg writes, while Mossos chief Trapero reports to the regional government, his force’s funding is mostly provided by Madrid and it’s supposed to take orders from judges and prosecutors from across the country. Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution lets the central government take control of a regional administration if it poses a threat to the national interest. Rajoy has already made moves in that direction.


Earlier this week, the budget ministry took over management of Catalan’s finances and will issue paychecks to more than 200,000 public workers in the region, including the police.


That said, any more direct challenge to the Mossos would be fraught with risk because Trapero, its leader, has become something of a local hero since leading the response to the terrorist attacks in August. Separatists are selling T-shirts with his face printed on them.


According to Reuters, the Catalan government also believes that the Mossos takeover bypasses the Catalan statute  - article 164 - and constitutional law and the Spanish prosecutor that ruled in favour of Madrid taking control had overstepped his legal boundaries, saying that it had no power to rule on who had the authority to issue orders to Mossos.





The prosecutor had ordered that the Catalan police, the Spanish National Police and Spain"s Guardia Civil be managed from the Ministry of Home Affairs in Madrid. The decision, according to the prosecution, aims at "reinforcing the operation to prevent crime and to keep public order" a week before the October 1 independence referendum.



The decision was announced during a meeting between the prosecutor and the chiefs of the three police forces.



The disobedience will fuel further speculation the Mossos will not work with the national Civil Guard in Spain’s largest regional economy. The standoff came a day after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government acknowledged it’s sending more reinforcements to help control street demonstrations and carry out a separate court order to halt the vote.


Additionally, the latest move by Madrid will also increase the tension between the two sides which increasingly looks like it could descend into a direct confrontation as neither side appears to be willing to back down.



Catalan President Carles Puigdemont speaking a pro-independence rally


Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s president, called the independence vote in an attempt to push the secession movement forward after decades of political and legal fights over the region’s traditions and language. Since Rajoy took office in 2011, he’s had persistent clashes with separatists seeking to foment a backlash against Madrid. Catalonia is home to about 7.5 million people, or 16 percent of the population, but accounts for a fifth of the economy, on a par with Portugal and Finland.


Several pro-independence groups have called for widespread protests on Sunday in central Barcelona. “Let’s respond to the state with an unstoppable wave of democracy,” a Whatsapp message which was used to organize the demonstration read.


The Catalonian government opened a new website on Saturday with details of how and where to vote on Oct. 1, challenging several court rulings that had blocked previous sites and declared the referendum unconstitutional.


“You can’t stem the tide,” Catalonia’s president Carles Puigdemont said on Twitter in giving the link to the new website.


But Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted again that the vote should not go ahead. “It will not happen because this would mean liquidating the law,” he said at the PP event in Palma de Mallorca. Acting on court orders, the Spanish state police has already raided the regional government offices, arrested temporarily several senior Catalan officials accused of organizing the referendum and seized ballot papers, ballot boxes, voting lists and electoral material and literature. The finance ministry in Madrid has also taken control of regional finances to make sure public money is not being spent to pay for the logistics the vote or to campaign.


How this escalating clash between Madrid and Catalonia is resolved over the coming week will define the fate of Spain for years to come.

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Friday, September 22, 2017

To Prevent Rebellion, Spain Docks Cruise Ship Housing 16,000 Riot Police In Barcelona Port

Efforts by Madrid to stop a Catalonia independence vote, currently slated for October 1st, seem to be growing more hostile by the day.  Earlier this week Spanish police seized control of Catalonia’s finances, seeking to ensure that separatist politicians could not spend further public funds on the referendum, and conducted raids across Catalonia to confiscate ballots and campaign materials from printing shops and delivery companies.


Now, as the New York Times notes this morning, Spanish police have detained 14 people during operations conducted yesterday which included the secretary general of economic affairs, Josep Maria Jové.





The Spanish police detained more than a dozen people in the region of Catalonia on Wednesday, drastically escalating tensions between the national government and Catalan separatists. The episode occurred less than two weeks before a highly contentious referendum on independence that the government in Madrid has vowed to block.



The police raided the offices of the Catalan regional government early Wednesday and arrested at least 14 people, including Josep Maria Jové, secretary general of economic affairs. The arrests were not expected, but hundreds of mayors and other officials in Catalonia had been warned that they would be indicted if they helped organize a referendum in violation of Spanish law.



Hundreds of supporters of Catalan independence immediately took to the streets of Barcelona to protest the arrests. Jordi Sanchez, the leader of one of the region’s biggest separatist associations, used Twitter to urge Catalans to “resist peacefully,” but also to “come out and defend our institutions.”



According to Reuters, the increasingly hostile crackdown by the Spanish police has led Catalan leaders to acknowledge for the first time today that plans to hold a referendum on independence are now in doubt following the arrest of senior regional officials and the seizure of campaign material by national police.





“It is obvious that we won’t be able to vote as we would have liked,” Oriol Junqueras, deputy head and economy minister of the regional government, told local television TV3. “They have altered the rules.”



It was the first time the promoters of the referendum had acknowledged their plans were in doubt, although Junqueras said he said he was convinced voters would still turn out in numbers.



It is not yet clear whether the police operation would be enough to prevent the vote overall or if it could instead bring fresh momentum to the secession campaign.



Polls show about 40 percent of Catalans support independence although a majority want a referendum on the issue.



Rajoy


Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain


Meanwhile, as a sign of the growing hostility and Madrid"s intentions to do all that is necessary to block a vote, Bloomberg notes that Spain has hired cruise liners specifically to mount a massive force of 16,000 police in a Catalan port.





Spain has discreetly hired ferries to be moored in the Port of Barcelona as temporary housing for possibly thousands of police specially deployed to keep order in rebel Catalonia and help suppress an illegal independence referendum.



The country’s interior ministry asked Catalan port authorities to provide a berth for one ship until Oct. 3 -- two days after the planned vote -- saying it was a matter of state, a spokeswoman for the port said by phone Wednesday. The vessel, known as “Rhapsody,” docked in the city about 9:30 a.m. Thursday, she said.



The aim is to amass more than 16,000 riot police and other security officers by the Oct. 1 referendum, El Correo newspaper reported on its website. That would exceed the number of Catalan police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, who serve both the Catalan and central governments.




the Rhapsody of the Sea cruise ship.


Still, the Catalan government says it can hold the vote, and recently announced that it had stored about 6,000 ballot boxes in a secret location. “The referendum will be held and is already organized,” Mr. Romeva said. “Clearly the conditions in which it will be celebrated are not those that we wished for.”





Separatist leaders, however, have accused Mr. Rajoy of plunging Catalonia into a state of emergency rather than negotiating the terms of a referendum.



“The issue that is at stake today isn’t the independence — or not — of Catalonia,” Raül Romeva, Catalonia’s foreign affairs chief, told a group of foreign correspondents in Madrid on Wednesday, “but democracy in Spain and the European Union.”



Mr. Romeva said that Catalonia would hold the referendum as planned, and that Catalan lawmakers would act to honor the result within 48 hours — meaning they would declare independence unilaterally if people voted for it.



“There is no alternative, absolutely no alternative,” he said. “There are only two projects now on the table: a democratic project or repression.”



Now,why do we have a feeling that placing a riot police force of 16,000 in a Catalan port, ready to pounce at a moment"s notice, will not help reduce the local push for independence... 

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Thursday, August 17, 2017

Live Feed: At Least 13 Killed After Van Plows Into Barcelona Crowd; Armed Terrorists Take Hostages

Live Feed:



Summary of the latest:


  • A terror attack took place in Barcelona when a van plowed into a crowd in Las Ramblas, killing at least 13 and injuring over 20

  • A hostage situation is taking place underway in nearby restaurant, where two armed individuals have taken hostages.

  • This would be the deadliest terrorist attack in Spain since 2004 bombing, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800.

* * *


Update 5: Attack witness Lourdes Porcar has told Spain"s TV3 television station that she saw the van running people over. “It was going very fast, without caring about who was in its way.”  


Additionally, Police have set up roadblocks around the city amid reports that a second van was involved in the attack and fled the scene.


As reported earlier, there are also reports that at least on attacker is holed up in a Turkish restaurant on Carrer Hospital, which leads off from the spot in which the van appears to have come to a halt. Television pictures show that a van came to a halt on top of a Joan Miro mosaic, half-way down Las Ramblas - meaning that it would have covered more than 500 metres, mowing dow anyone in its path.


* * *


Update 4: According to a leading terrorism analyst, there is "growing confidence" the Islamic State may be behind the Barcelona attack as message to Spain popping up on key IS-linked Telegram channels.



* * *


Update 3: According to El Mundo the number of dead increased to 13. Additionally, as the Telegraph adds, Police stationed at the cordon a block away from Plaza Catalunya, on Passeig de Gracia, say they have no information what is happening inside. Confused tourists, shoppers and business owners gathered at its edges, awaiting some word or direction as to what to do.  


The Catalan police say they are treating the crash as a suspected terrorist attack but cannot yet confirm the motive.  According to media reports, the attack vehicle was a rented van.  That would suggest, if this is confirmed as a terrorist attack, that terrorists are imitating the perpetrators of the London Bridge attack, where a rented van was also used.


Sky News reports that police are now looking for a second van that may have been involved in the attack.


* * *


Update 2: Daksha Dixit, a 28 year old tourist visiting from Mumbai with family, told the Telegraph they had been on a tourist bus which had just dropped them off one block from Plaza Cataluña when they heard the news.  "We got off and people were panicking, no one knew what was going on. There was panic everywhere."  The family arrived just yesterday for a one week trip and their hotel is on the Ramblas inside the cordon. They were unclear as to what exactly was unfolding, with Miss Dixit adding: "I don"t know what to do".


* * *


Update 1: According to Reuters, two armed men have holed up inside a Turkish restaurant after the crash and have taken hostages, while El Periodico tweets that there was an active shootout in the area, in what the Barclona police now say is considered a "terrorist attack."




The location of the terrorist attack:



Reuters also adds that at least two have been killed in the van crash while El Mundo adds that more than 20 people have been injured. Pictures from the scene of the crash show emergency services and civilians attending to at least two people on the ground. One twitter video post shows bodies strewn across the pavement for at least 100 metres of the famous street.



According to El Pais the perpetrator of the van attack is still on the run.


* * *


A "massive crash" has taken place in Barcelona, where a white van has ploughed into a crowd of "dozens of people" in the city"s center, at the main Rambla de Catalunya promenade, one of the most well-known and popular parts of the city, visited by tourists and locals alike. Catalan emergency services said people should not go to the area around Placa Catalunya.



El Pais newspaper said the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot after mowing down dozens of people. While full details of the incident were not immediately clear, since July 2016 vehicles have been used to ram into crowds in a series of militant attacks across Europe, killing well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm. In recent weeks, threatening graffiti against tourists has appeared in Barcelona, which draws at least 11 million visitors a year.




In one video released under the slogan "tourism kills neighbourhoods", several hooded individuals stopped a tourist bus in Barcelona, slashed the tyres and spray-painted the windscreen.




From Reuters:


  • BARCELONA POLICE CONFIRM THAT A "MASSIVE CRASH" FROM A VAN HAS OCCURRED IN THE CITY CENTRE

  • BARCELONA POLICE SAY ON TWITTER THERE ARE SEVERAL INJURED FROM VAN CRASH IN CITY CENTRE

  • CATALAN EMERGENCY SERVICES SAY ON TWITTER THERE IS AN INCIDENT ON PLACA CATALUNYA, PEOPLE SHOULD AVOID GOING TO AREA

As Vanguardia adds citing several sources, the driver appears to have run over a dozen people. The local police reported that there are "several injured", without giving further details. Local emergency services say that police forces have evacuated the area, while several ambulances are attending to the injured.










Developing

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