Spanish authorities do everything to prevent Catalan independence referendum

Several hundred people participated on Sunday in Madrid in a meeting supporting Catalans in holding the banned referendum on Catalonia's independence from Spain, scheduled for October 1, world media report, according to the Patria agency.

The gathering was held in a small theater in central Madrid after a court banned its holding in a municipal cultural center.

Spain's Constitutional Court has banned the holding of a referendum on Catalonia's independence, whose parliament on September 6 passed a law formalizing plans to hold the independence referendum.

Spain's 1978 constitution, when democracy was introduced in Spain, prohibits holding referendums at the provincial level, and they are only allowed at the state level.

Official Madrid has launched a series of actions to prevent the holding of the referendum, one of which is financial control to prevent the referendum from being funded with public money.

Participants at the rally chanted “Freedom of expression,” “We are not afraid,” “We have the right to decide.”

On Sunday, the prominent Spanish daily El Pais published an appeal by prominent figures, such as writer Javier Marias and actress Marisa Paredes, calling on voters to boycott the referendum, because, they claim, it is an “anti-democratic fraud.”

The Catalan government has announced that, regardless of Madrid's objections, it will hold the referendum and declare independence if the YES option wins in the referendum.

Madrid has the judicial authority to take control of the regional government or can send police to stop Catalonia from voting, but any of these measures would disrupt the model of decentralized governance in Spain, divided into 17 autonomous provinces, of which Catalonia is one.

On Sunday, police in Barcelona seized nearly 1.5 million leaflets calling for independence.

The court also notified several Catalan media, including the public regional television TV-3 and Catalunya Ràdio, to stop airing advertisements in which independence supporters call for voting in the referendum.

Catalonia has 7.5 million inhabitants and is deeply divided on the issue of the referendum. During the regional elections in September 2015, two pro-independence lists won 47.8 percent of the vote compared to 51.7 percent received by opponents of independence.