Mass demonstration surrounds Catalunya regional Parliament
Wednesday, January 31, 2018 @ 6:39 PM
HUNDREDS of demonstrators gathered outside Catalunya's regional Parliament building as the saga of its presidential seat continues.
Two were arrested and three injured, although not seriously, and 24 regional police officers, or Mossos d'Esquadra, suffered minor wounds.
Carles Puigdemont, the only candidate for president, remains in exile in Belgium and cannot enter Spain without being arrested, but the country's Constitutional Court will not allow him to be sworn in 'from a distance'.
Catalunya's Parliamentary chair Roger Torrent has had to put off the ceremony, whilst Puigdemont himself has appealed the Constitutional Court verdict, saying that as he has been democratically elected, he does not legally need permission from a judge or any other authority to be sworn in.
But a national arrest warrant remains over him and four of his ministers – three of whom have given up their seats to other members of their parties to lend strength to Puigdemont's being voted in – meaning that the five are only free from custody if they stay out of the country.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com