“Go get 'em”: Crowd chants Spanish police leaving for Catalonia

“A por ellos” (“Go get ‘em”). This is the chant that crowds across Spain are singing as thousands of police officers leave for Catalonia in the run-up to the October 1 vote on independence. Police officers have been mobilized to make sure the referendum does not take place.

People have gathered in police stations, waving Spanish flags and cheering police cars as they depart.

Yet, not only is the Spanish government sending more police officers to Catalonia, but also attempting to take control of Catalonia’s own police body, the Mossos d’Esquadra.

Spain’s Attorney General argued that the Mossos alone won’t be able to stop the referendum. Yet, the head of the Catalan police, Josep Lluís Trapero, says the decision is no justified and might even be unlawful.

But Spanish institutions hope the referendum will be thwarted before October 1. At least, they’re doing everything in their hands to achieve it.

Shutting down websites

Several websites have been shut down in the past days, and on Monday it was the turn for the Catalan National Assembly, the largest pro-independence civil society organization in the country, and the main organizer of massive demonstrations on National Days. Members of the organizations say they received no previous notification, and some even deem the measure as dictatorial.

Still, shorty after the original website was shut down, they opened it again using a different domain.

The same has happened with other sites since the first referendum website was initially shut down. That day, the Catalan president immediately opened a new one and warned, as a Spanish proverb says, that "the countryside cannot be closed off behind doors."