Merkel makes call for calm
Political parties, leaders from Europe and the US as well as the world’s press react strongly to the violence used by Spanish police during yesterday’s vote
The acts of police repression against Catalan voters that flashed around the world have led to criticism in many quarters, including Angela Merkel. According to the German press, the Chancellor, the most important leader of the European Union, called the Spanish Prime Minister to ask for explanations about the injuries caused by the Guardia Civil and the National Police during yesterday’s referendum. This is just one of the many reactions that police brutality yesterday unleashed among political parties and the media all over Europe and the United States.
Donald Trump’s cryptic words last week during Rajoy’s US visit proved to be true: there was a vote, and the citizens stood up for their rights. Many, many people peacefully resisted the withdrawal of the polls and the closure of polling stations and despite Madrid’s efforts to play things down, CNN and NBC kept the news as a top story, showing the police charges. Even FOX, close to the Republican party, highlighted the damage at polling stations.
In France, the influential newspaper Liberation in an editorial described: “images of policemen entering schools wielding sledge-hammers” as disastrous for Spanish nationalism, ending with “we have seen violence by the State against an act of disobedience that respected democracy.”
Hard-hitting words came from British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, possibly the UK’s next PM, who decried the shocking violence against voters and in Twitter asked the Spanish government to end the repression. Other European leaders followed his lead. SDP leader Martin Schultz asked for dialogue and Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon called for a change from Spain before things get worse.