People block the street in a stand off with civil guards in Sant Julia de Ramis, near Girona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. Scuffles have erupted as voters protested while dozens of anti-rioting police broke into a polling station where the regional leader was expected to show up for voting on Sunday. (AP Photo)
SANT JULIA DE RAMIS, Spain — Spanish riot police smashed their way into polling stations to try to halt a disputed independence referendum on Sunday and fired rubber projectiles at protesters outside a Barcelona polling station. Several people were wounded in the confrontation.
The officers fired the projectiles while trying to clear protesters who were trying to impede National Police cars from leaving after police confiscated ballot boxes from the voting center. The Spanish government has ordered police to stop the voting process, saying it’s illegal.
An AP photographer saw several people who had been injured during the scuffles outside Barcelona’s Rius i Taule school, where some voters had cast ballots before police arrived.
Manuel Conedeminas, a 48-year-old IT manager who tried to block police from driving away with the ballot boxes, said agents had kicked them before using their batons and firing the projectiles, which were ball-shaped.
Elsewhere, Civil Guard officers, wearing helmets and carrying shields, used a hammer to break the glass of the front door and a lock cutter to break into the Sant Julia de Ramis sports center near the city of Girona. At least one woman was injured outside the building and wheeled away on a stretcher by paramedics.
Clashes broke out less than an hour after polls opened, and not long before Catalonia regional president Carles Puigdemont was expected to turn up to vote at the sports center. Polling station workers inside the building reacted peacefully and broke out into songs and chants challenging the officers’ presence.
Puigdemont was forced to vote in Cornella de Terri, near the northern city of Girona, his spokesman Joan Maria Pique told The Associated Press.
The Spanish government and its security forces are trying to prevent voting in the independence referendum, which is backed by Catalan regional authorities. Spanish officials had said force wouldn’t be used, but that voting wouldn’t be allowed.
Spain’s Constitutional Court has suspended the vote. Regional separatist leaders pledged to hold it anyway, promising to declare independence if the “yes” side wins, and have called on 5.3 million eligible voters to cast ballots.