Catalans against secession are alarmed by recent violence
Published Nov 3, 2019 03:53 pm
By the Associated PressÂ
BARCELONA, Spain — As a tour guide in one of Europe's top travel destinations, MarÃa José MartÃnez constantly takes busloads of tourists to an overlook in Barcelona to gaze upon one of Spain's most enchanting skylines.
In this photo taken on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019, Pro-Spain demonstrators gather along a street during a protest called by a unionist Catalan civil society group in Barcelona, Spain. Catalans who want the restive region to remain part of Spain are becoming increasingly frustrated with the chaos, disruptions and violence brought by a renewed wave of pro-independence protests triggered by prison sentences against leaders of a failed bid for secession in 2017. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti / MANILA BULLETIN)
But instead of being wowed by the Mediterranean blue and the sandcastle-like spires of Antoni GaudÃ's La Sagrada Familia basilica, recent clients have been unnerved by the sight of smoke rising from smoldering street barricades set aflame by Catalan separatists.
MartÃnez is one of the roughly 50% of Catalonia's 7.5 million residents who polls and recent elections show are opposed to the wealthy region's separatist movement, which has provoked Spain's worst political crisis in decades.
She and others say they are increasingly concerned with the violent turn that the separatist movement has taken after almost a decade of exclusively peaceful protests.
In this photo taken on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019, Pro-Spain demonstrators gather along a street during a protest called by a unionist Catalan civil society group in Barcelona, Spain. Catalans who want the restive region to remain part of Spain are becoming increasingly frustrated with the chaos, disruptions and violence brought by a renewed wave of pro-independence protests triggered by prison sentences against leaders of a failed bid for secession in 2017. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti / MANILA BULLETIN)
But instead of being wowed by the Mediterranean blue and the sandcastle-like spires of Antoni GaudÃ's La Sagrada Familia basilica, recent clients have been unnerved by the sight of smoke rising from smoldering street barricades set aflame by Catalan separatists.
MartÃnez is one of the roughly 50% of Catalonia's 7.5 million residents who polls and recent elections show are opposed to the wealthy region's separatist movement, which has provoked Spain's worst political crisis in decades.
She and others say they are increasingly concerned with the violent turn that the separatist movement has taken after almost a decade of exclusively peaceful protests.