THEY were scenes the Spanish government did not want to see. Across Catalonia, in north-eastern Spain, tens of thousands of people turned out to cast votes in an unconstitutional referendum on secession organised by the regional government. Spain’s conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, had vowed that the referendum would not take place. Spanish riot police shut down over 300 polling stations, causing many injuries, though most of them minor. But several thousand others were functioning, albeit slowly, as a cyberwar unfolded in the background over internet access to the voter roll.
That was a victory for Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president, and his pro-independence government. And so, in propaganda terms, was the video footage of riot police beating protesters who were blockading schools where voting was to take place. In one case, an elderly woman was left bloodstained. “Today the Spanish state has lost a lot more than it had already lost, and Catalan...Continue reading
Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/2g2pNGJ
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