MADRID: Spain’s public prosecutor on Wednesday ordered a criminal probe of over 700 Catalan mayors who are cooperating with an October 1 independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid.
The move increases the pressure on Catalan officials just one day before the pro-separatist camp officially kicks off its referendum campaign in the Mediterranean port of Tarragona.
Furious at the decision to instigate a probe, Catalan municipal associations called on all the region’s mayors to protest in Barcelona on Saturday to show their “rejection of a Spanish judicial system that goes after the media, ballot papers, ballot boxes... and now mayors.”
The prosecutors’ office ordered the mayors who have agreed to help stage the vote be summoned to court as official suspects and if they do not appear to “order their arrest,” according to a copy of the ruling obtained by AFP.
Catalonia’s pro-separatist government has asked the wealthy northeastern region’s 948 mayors to provide facilities for polling stations for the plebiscite.
So far 712 mostly smaller municipalities have agreed to participate, according to a list posted on the website of Catalonia’s Municipal Association for Independence (AMI) which represents 750 municipalities.
“They can arrest us, they’re crazy!,” David Rovira, the pro-separatist mayor of L’Espluga de Francoli, a town of some 3,800 residents, told AFP by phone, adding that Madrid had “proposed nothing” to appease Catalonia’s demands for greater autonomy.
Jordi Turull, spokesman for the Catalan government, told reporters that the executive would support the region’s mayors and would “respect their decision.”
The ruling comes a day after prosecutors ordered police in Catalonia to seize ballot boxes, election flyers and any other item that could be used in the referendum.
Prosecutors have already launched an official complaint against Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and members of his government over their referendum plans, accusing them of civil disobedience, misfeasance and misappropriation of public funds — the latter carrying jail sentences of up to eight years.
And on Wednesday, the official referendum website was shut down following a court order, the Guardia Civil police force said, prompting Puigdemont to immediately tweet the address of a new website.
'Absolutely illegal act'
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government has vowed to do everything in its power to stop the referendum. It argues that Spain’s 1978 constitution stipulates that regional governments cannot call an independence referendum.
Rajoy on Wednesday urged Catalans to boycott the referendum.
“If anyone urges you to go to a polling station, don’t go because the referendum can’t take place, it would be an absolutely illegal act,” he said.
Spain’s Constitutional Court has suspended a referendum law that was fast-tracked through Catalonia’s regional parliament last week but the Catalan government has vowed to go ahead with the vote nonetheless.
Catalan authorities routinely ignore the court’s decisions as they do not recognize its legitimacy.
In his first public comments since the Catalan government signed a decree calling the referendum, Spain’s King Felipe VI said the rights of all Spaniards will be upheld against “whoever steps outside constitutional and statutory law.”
But constitutional law professor Javier Perez Royo said it would be difficult for the state to stop the referendum if huge numbers of Catalans disobey the law and vote.
'Adios, España'
Catalonia, which is roughly the size of Belgium and accounts for about one-fifth of Spain’s economic output, already has significant powers over matters such as education and health care.
But Spain’s economic worries, coupled with a perception that the region pays more in taxes than it receives in investments and transfers from Madrid, have helped push the cause of secession from the fringes of Catalan politics to center stage.
Hundreds of thousands of Catalans rallied on Monday in Barcelona on their national day to demand their region’s secession from Spain and support the right to vote.
One big banner at the rally read: “Goodbye Spain.”
Opinion polls show that Catalans are evenly divided on independence. But over 70 percent want a referendum to take place to settle the matter, similar to the plebiscite held in Scotland in 2014.
Spain threatens to arrest over 700 Catalan pro-referendum mayors
Spain threatens to arrest over 700 Catalan pro-referendum mayors
Five miners trapped deep underground after mudslide floods South African diamond mine
- The miners have been trapped since the early hours of Tuesday, according to a labor alliance
- The mine is in the central city of Kimberley, which is renowned for its diamond mines
JOHANNESBURG: Five miners were trapped deep underground at a South African diamond mine after a mudslide flooded a shaft they were working in, mine officials and a labor union said Thursday.
The miners have been trapped since the early hours of Tuesday, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions — an alliance of labor unions that includes the main mineworkers union. The congress said the miners were thought to be trapped around 800 meters (half a mile) underground.
Ekapa Mining General Manager Howard Marsden, whose company operates the mine, told national broadcaster SABC on Wednesday that rescuers were pumping water out of the shaft while a separate team was trying to drill a hole to where the miners were believed to be trapped to try to establish communication with them “or any proof of life.”
The mine is in the central city of Kimberley, which is renowned for its diamond mines and was at the heart of the global industry after diamonds were discovered in the area in the late 1800s.
The Minerals Council of South Africa said this month in its annual safety report that 41 miners died in mining accidents in South Africa last year, a record low and down from hundreds a year in the 1990s and early 2000s.
South Africa is among the world’s biggest producers of diamonds and gold, and the top producer of platinum.
