The Spanish Government have been attempting to censor the people of Catalonia ahead of today's referendum by shutting down websites and social media pages. They are attempting to deny images like that of yesterday's massive rally in Barcelona reaching across Europe and beyond.
The Catalan government said it was determined to continue holding the referendum today for regional independance despite Madrid's attempts to stop it. The central government insisted the poll will not go ahead as police sealed off a swathe of schools which had been designated as polling stations.But pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont, President of the Catalan Generalitat, told crowds in Barcelona that Catalonia had already “defeated the state” in its bid for autonomy.
At a rally attended by thousands in the city to mark the end of the campaign on Friday, he boasted: "We have already won. We have overcome the fears and threats, the pressures and the lies . We have defeated a state that didn't want to let us get here.
"We have achieved what was only a dream, on Sunday we have a date with the future.
"Next week we will begin to walk firmly, dressed in sovereignty and the dignity that the State wanted to take away from us.”
Bands played at the closing rally where people constructed the slogan "Referendum is democracy" in big white letters on a stage in front of a cheering crowd, many draped in the red-and-yellow Catalan flag.
The Generalitat’s Vice-President, Oriol Junqueras, said the campaign had been marked by the "firmness and serenity” of people in defending their rights.
Civil rights are being violated.and the quality of democracy in Spain is being eroded.This is first and foremost about democratic standards and fundamental rights, that what we are having today in Spain is a serious damaging of the democratic tools, of the democratic structures".
He told supporters "To build a better world for us and our children , Catalans don't give up. We are not afraid. Democrats across the world, we are the product of many difficulties and many defeats, but we are also the seeds of all victories."
Police have confiscated thousands of voting slips, and courts have fined and threatened to arrest regional officials.
Catalonia's High Court ordered Google to delete a smartphone app that the Catalan government was using to spread information about the vote.
Madrid, which claims the authority of a constitution that declares the country to be indivisible, remains opposed to the vote, but also hopes Sunday will be peaceful.
Government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo warned organisers would face criminal charges and said: ”I insist that there will be no referendum on October 1.
In a sign that large crowds are expected on the streets on Sunday, department store chain El Corte Ingles said it would shut three stores in central Barcelona. The government said airspace above the city would also be restricted.
Spain's government said today that police had sealed off 1,300 of 2,315 schools in Catalonia which had been designated as polling station.
But around 163 schools which have been earmarked as voting centres have been occupied by independence supporters.
People have also camped out overnight in schools in an effort to prevent an order by the head of the Catalan regional police to evacuate and close polling stations by 6am on Sunday, before the voting opens at 9am.
However Spanish police have clashed clashed with voters as thousands of people flocked to the polls to vote .Catalan emergency services said 38 people were hurt, mostly with minor injuries, as a result of police action. The country's national police began to seize ballot boxes and voting papers from Catalan polling stations on this morning.
Voters have described the police as "aggressive" and giving "no warning" as hundreds of would-be voters were forcefully removed.
Elsewhere in Barcelona, police have detained several people outside the Treball voting centre amid scuffles on the street. Officers dragged some of the protesters away and detained them.
At a polling station, due to be used by the Catalan president Carles Puigdemont in Sant Julia de Ramis, riot police used a hammer to smash the glass of the front door and lock cutters to force their way in.
Scuffles erupted outside between police and people waiting to vote with at least one woman injured and wheeled away on a stretcher by paramedics. Riot police also clashed with voters outside a Barcelona voting station, where dozens of police used riot shields to push people back, a Reuters witness said. People waiting to vote chanted "we are people of peace" and "we are not afraid".
In response to these latest tactics deployed by the Spanish Government, the Independence movement in Catalonia have requested assistance to help expose the reality in their homeland and to smash this censorship to smithereens.The democratic expressions of the people of Catalonia must be respected , free them from repression. The people of Catalonia have the right to decide their own future. Let them have their say but the Spanish government has brought Franco’s practices back. Shame on them.
So please share, and get the word out there anyway you can!
UPDATE
2/10/17 00.41
The Catalan government has said around 2.26 million people had cast a ballot in the banned referendum to leave Spain on Sunday and 90 percent of them had voted in favor of secession.
This represents a turnout of around 42.3 percent of Catalonia's 5.34 million voters. And this is without taking into account the hundreds of thousands of ballots that have been confiscated or weren't cast as hundreds of polling stations were closed by the Spanish authorities or the amount of voters beaten up. In fact despite of repression it seems to have driven people to the polls.. #CatalanReferendum
