Spanish government says referendum anniversary 'nothing to celebrate'

One year on from the independence referendum, people all over Catalonia are today remembering a momentous day in the country's recent history. Yet, the Spanish government says October 1 2017 was "a day of sad memories" and "nothing to celebrate."

In a radio interview on Monday morning, Spanish government spokeswoman, Isabel Celaá, described the images from last year's vote -in which over a thousand people were injured by police violence- as "pitiful" and "seriously" damaging to Spain's image abroad. 

The spokeswoman also suggested that some of those images "were false," and while she admitted that some Spanish police used excessive force to crackdown on the vote, she described such incidents as "very isolated cases that are being investigated." 

Rajoy government "got it wrong" 

While Celaá was critical of the Mariano Rajoy's government in office at the time, saying "they got it wrong" in their response to the referendum, she also claimed it was not a good day for the independence movement, "which came up against the principle of reality." 

Calling the expectations of declaring a Catalan republic a "farce," the spokeswoman claimed that in the days following the vote "the whole world view of the independence movement collapsed." 

Referendum was "illegal" and no mandate 

For Celaá, the October 1 referendum was an "illegal" event and therefore its result is not a political mandate from the Catalan people, while going ahead with the vote revealed the "rift in Catalan society" like "never before." 

Insisting that the vote "surely wouldn't have been held" under the current Socialist government, Celaá claimed the Spanish executive had now opened "a political corridor" in pursuit of a negotiated solution to the calls for self-determination in Catalonia. 

Meanwhile, Celaá warned president Quim Torra that the violence during protests against Spanish police on Saturday in Barcelona "cannot happen again." "The Catalan government has the obligation of maintaining public order," She said. After the protests, Torra publicly condemned the violence.   

People's Party warns Torra and Torrent 

Also with a warning for Torra was Teodoro Garcia Egea, the number two in the People's Party, which was in government when the referendum took place. He warned president Torra and Parliament president Roger Torrent on Monday about "making calls to break the law," on the October 1 anniversary.