Catalonian Constitutional Crisis

On October 1, 2017, Catalonia voted in a contentious referendum on independence from Spain. This vote was made possible, in part, by a network of French Catalan speakers who helped the independence movement to import poll boxes and ballot papers that were initially hidden in the French countryside [BBC, 2018]. Prior to the referendum, the vote was declared illegal by Spain’s constitutional court, and police units were deployed to prevent voting, by blocking access to polling stations and stealing filled ballot papers. In Barcelona the police fired rubber bullets and used batons against pro-referendum crowds, injuring 38, while in other areas gates were removed from polling areas to make it harder for authorities to seal buildings [BBC, 2017]. Despite the state attempts to prevent voting, the referendum passed with an overwhelming majority (92.01%), but Spain’s constitutional court struck it down as illegal [Jones, 2019]. A general strike was called on October 3^rd in which hundreds of thousands of protesters participated and, by the end of the month, on October 27th, the separatists in the Catalan parliament declared independence from Spain [Al Jazeera, 2019]. In response, Spain invoked direct rule in Catalonia, sacked the leaders and the parliament, and called for a snap election won by nationalists [BBC, 2019; Al Jazeera, 2019]. Direct rule lasted until June 2018, when the new Catalan government was sworn in, and many key members of the parliament of Carles Puigdemont, the former President of Catalonia, were arrested. Puigdemont himself fled to Belgium in exile [Al Jazeera, 2019; Jones, 2019].