Demonstrators have clashed with police in Barcelona during protests against the Spanish government’s decision to hold a cabinet meeting in the Catalan capital on the first anniversary of the snap election called after the regional government’s unilateral independence declaration.
Barcelona police clash with crowd during protests agaisnt cabinet meeting
STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: Parts of the city were in lockdown on Friday morning, while elsewhere in Catalonia, more than 20 roads were blocked by members of the direct-action Committees for the Defence of the Republic with the aim of cutting off all access to Barcelona, the Guardian reports.
Dozens of protesters sat on the AP 7 motorway, which runs down the Mediterranean coast, holding their hands in the air as police in riot gear pulled them from the road. Some were wearing hi-vis vests in a presumed reference both to France’s gilets jaunes activists and the colour associated with the Catalan independence movement, yellow.
Although Catalan pro-independence leaders had issued repeated calls for people to follow the tradition of peaceful protest, there were outbreaks of violence.
