Residents in Barcelona, Spain took to the streets on October 2, 2017 to protest the violent police crackdown during Catalonia’s banned independence referendum on October 1, 2017.
People waved Catalan pro-independence ‘Estelada’ flags as they took part in a protest in Barcelona.
“The central government has been consistent with its historical performance until the end, that is to say that mean every time they have not been able to solve any issue that has got out of hand they’ve always ended up using violence and for me yesterday it was just one more episode of his great history, characterized by shame and corruption,” said Miguel Chel, a lawyer and one of the protesters.
Patricia Ventura, another young resident, said the images of violence were harrowing for her, and would be remembered for a long time.
“Simply, seeing how people bled and were getting punched. Seeing how my father was apprehended and dragged away, seeing how my dance teacher was punched and head-butted. They threatened us with breaking our fingers if we didn’t come down from a fence. I have reached a point where I can’t remove these images from my head, nobody can make me forget them,” she said.
But there were also residents who did not want Catalan’s independence from Spain.
“To me this (referendum) is bad . Trying to split up a country that until now – whether they like it or not- has been united. The truth is it doesn’t seem right to me: creating borders, making this mess in the XXI century when everyone in the world is doing the opposite, eliminating borders,” said José Luis Pezzi.
(video and interviews from Agence France Presse TV)