Barcelona unrest: 128 arrested, more than half of them minors
A gathering promoted online on a French model ended in looting in the city centre. Fifteen police officers were hurt, and Mayor Collboni wants compensation.
Symbolic image · Photo: Francesc 2000 / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
A night of unrest hit central Barcelona: around Plaça de Catalunya, groups of young people, many dressed in black and hooded, threw stones at police, built barricades, set bins on fire and smashed shop windows. The Saturday evening gathering had been promoted on social media as "Instituts Indignats", modelled on the French school student movement "Lycéens Indignés". Spanish media said around 600 people were there at its peak.
Police arrested 128 people, including 72 minors according to figures released on Sunday. Fifteen officers were injured, 14 of them from the Catalan police force Mossos d'Esquadra. Police said 23 businesses were damaged. Mayor Jaume Collboni said the city would join legal proceedings and seek compensation, including from the parents of minors: "This will not be left as it is. We will go all the way."
Catalan regional president Salvador Illa defended the police operation. "Protesting is a democratic right," he wrote, but violence has no place in Catalonia. Authorities stressed that the rioters had nothing to do with the peaceful housing rights camp on the square. A general strike over Spain's housing crisis has been called for 11 November.