Barcelona: Thousands march against Catalan independence

By Alyssa McMurtry

MADRID (AA) - Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Barcelona on Sunday, urging the Catalan government to return to the Spanish constitutional order and end its efforts for independence.

The streets burst with yellow and red, the colors of both the Spanish and non-separatist Catalan flags, and many carried the flag of the European Union. Organizers said between 930,000 and 950,000 people took part, whereas municipal police estimated that 350,000 took to the streets.

“Passion can be dangerous when it moves fanaticism and racism. And the worst of all is nationalistic passion,” Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian Nobel Prize winner, who spends much of his time in Spain, said according to local media.

“We don’t want banks and companies to leave Catalonia, as if it were a medieval city beset by the plague,” Llosa added in a speech during the rally.

The protests come a week after Catalonia’s outlawed independence referendum, in which around 900 voters were injured by Spanish police. In the referendum, turnout was around 43 percent but 90 percent voted in favor of independence, triggering pro-separatist Catalan government to say the northeastern region of Spain had won the right to statehood. A unilateral declaration of independence could happen within the coming days.

However, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told daily El Pais on Sunday he will do what he must to defend Spanish sovereignty.

“Be sure that this battle is going to be fought and is going to be won, because it is a fair battle,” he said in the interview.

Political instability in Catalonia has already caused major banks and companies to relocate their headquarters to other parts of Spain and has polarized Catalan society, where roughly half of the citizens want to stay in Spain.

Yet, in recent weeks, protests have been led by pro-independence groups, with Sunday marking the first major manifestation against a declaration of independence by what the Spanish media dub the “silent majority”.

But Sunday marks the second consecutive day of protests in Spain, with thousands marching on Saturday, calling for dialogue to defuse the tense situation. Hundreds of thousands of separatists also took to the streets last Tuesday during a general strike, in protest of Spain’s crackdown during the vote.