Ex-Catalan Leader Calls For Second Independence Vote Amid Protests

Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont suggested Monday that the region should again put its split from Spain to vote after the top court in Madrid handed long jail terms to officials who helped organize the first referendum

MADRID (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th October, 2019) Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont suggested Monday that the region should again put its split from Spain to vote after the top court in Madrid handed long jail terms to officials who helped organize the first referendum.

The sentences of between nine and 13 years, given to nine former Catalan senior officials on sedition charges, sparked off mass protests in Barcelona, the main city of the well-off Spanish region which voted overwhelmingly for independence in the 2017 poll.

"Nothing scares them more than the will of the people and so they will never be open to discussing any route that leads towards a referendum to ascertain what we want and how we want it.

They fear our response at the ballot box, so we have to use this opportunity to response more resoundingly that ever before," Puigdemont said in a statement.

The former Catalan leader, who fled to Belgium to escape prison and was put on the European and international wanted list earlier in the day, urged Catalans to "mobilize ourselves and make our voices heard" but stressed that the methods to do that should be non-violent.