Catalan and Spanish police in the spotlight as 58 journalists injured

A media observatory group, Mèdia.cat, has reported 58 journalists injured during the unrest in Catalonia from Monday to Friday.

According to the entity, only on Friday 20 media professionals were injured, most of them due to the Catalan and Spanish police operation.

An association of journalists, Grup Barnils, have denounced the "attacks and arrests" of journalists, which they call "unacceptable." A photojournalist for 'El País', Albert Garcia, was detained for few hours during the riots on Friday. 

In a statement on Saturday, they asked for the Catalan and Spanish home affairs ministers to step down.

Most of the journalists injured were visually identifiable as members of the press through vests and armbands, as Grup Barnils said and Catalan News Agency reporters confirm.

"Unprecedented attack on the right to inform"

"The fully unprecedented number of attacks on journalists on Friday and the arrest of a photojournalist leads to think of a deliberate ploy against informants. These series of actions certify that what has been witnessed in the past few days is an unprecedented attack on the right to inform," reads the statement by Group Barnils.

The criticism to the police also came from the political sphere. The Catalan vice president, Pere Aragonès, asked for the Spanish law enforcement to act with "proportionality."

Spain's home affairs minister countered criticism saying that both Catalan and Spanish police forces are acting with "proportionality" and denied that the government is "overwhelmed."