Nicola Sturgeon condemns violence in Spain as police fire rubber bullets at Catalonia independence referendum voters

SPANISH riot police have smashed their way into polling stations to try to halt a disputed independence referendum and fired rubber bullets at voters outside a Barcelona polling station.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has taken to twitter to condemn the violence.

2/2 and call on Spain to change course before someone is seriously hurt. Let people vote peacefully.

— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 1, 2017

The officers opened fire while trying to clear protesters who were trying to prevent National Police cars from leaving after police confiscated ballot boxes from the voting centre.

The Spanish government has ordered police to stop the voting process, saying it is 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. Catalan officials said 38 people were treated for mostly minor injuries.

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.

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 centre. Polling station workers inside the building reacted peacefully and broke out into songs and chants challenging the officers’ presence.

Mr Puigdemont was forced to vote in Cornella de Terri, near the northern city of Girona.

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 would not be used, but that voting would not 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.

Police had sealed off many voting centres in the hours before the vote to prevent their use. Others were filled with activists determined to hold their ground.

Spanish riot police forcefully removed a few hundred would-be voters from a polling station at a school in Barcelona.

But Enric Millo, the Spanish government’s representative in the region, said police and National Guard forces acted “professionally” to enforce court orders. He said any attempt to claim the referendum as valid is doomed.

“Today’s events in Catalonia can never be portrayed as a referendum or anything similar,” he said.