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Catalan separatists block roads in protest

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Neumünster, Germany: Spanish riot police broke up a blockade by Catalan separatists on major motorways in Catalonia on Tuesday, part of a wave of protests over the arrest and detention of ex-regional president Carles Puigdemont.


Television images showed riot police surrounding protesters who had sat down in the middle of motorway AP-7, which links Spain to neighbouring France. Police removed the protesters one by one facing a chorus of boos from the pro-Catalan independence activists.


Motorists on Tuesday morning were forced to take alternate routes to avoid the roads briefly blocked around the northeast Spanish region, including the two main access roads into Barcelona.


The demonstration was called by the radical Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), which were set up just before Catalonia held an independence referendum on October 1 that was banned by the courts.


“With the latest incarcerations and the arrest of president Carles Puigdemont, it clearly seems that we have crossed the point of no return,” the CDR announced in a statement on Monday following mass demonstrations the day before.


The group is now planning another action later to surround the main Sants train station in Barcelona.


After his arrest in Germany on Sunday, a court there has ordered Puigdemont to remain in custody pending possible extradition to Spain to face “rebellion” charges.


His arrest comes five months after he went on the run as Spanish prosecutors sought to charge him with sedition and rebellion in the wake of Catalonia’s failed independence bid in October last year.


Aside from Puigdemont, nine other Catalan separatist leaders are in jail in Spain over the wealthy northeastern region’s failed breakaway attempt.


According to his lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, Puigdemont was on his way back to Belgium, where he lived in self-imposed exile after Spanish authorities moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia.


A ruling on extradition must normally be made within 60 days under German law. A spokeswoman for the German prosecutor’s office said it would “probably not come this week” ahead of the four-day Easter holiday.


The ousted president’s detention marks the latest chapter in a secession saga that has bitterly divided Catalans and triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades. — AFP


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