EVEN AS Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insisted hat there was no independence vote in Catalonia, Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont called Monday for international mediation in the crisis pitting his regional separatist executive against Madrid, a day after police violence marred an independence referendum banned by the central government.
In the early hours of Monday morning, the Catalan government claimed that 90 percent of voters backed independence in the referendum, which it said saw a turnout of just over 42 percent despite attempts to stop them from voting.
Puigdemont, meanwhile, said his region had “won the right to an independent state.”
Prime Minister Rajoy said in a television address that the great majority of Catalans did not “follow the script of the secessionists.” He gave no proof for that statement. Rajoy said the independence referendum only served to sow divisions.
Meanwhile, several unions, including the UGT and CCOO, Spain’s biggest unions, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and 41 other organisations called a region-wide strike for Tuesday, condemning the police crackdown, calling it a “grave violation of rights and freedoms.”
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