MADRID: Thousands of people supporting a contested referendum to split Catalonia from Spain took to Barcelona’s streets amid an intensifying government crackdown on the independence vote that included the arrests of a dozen regional officials Wednesday and the seizure of 10 million ballot papers.
The arrests — the first involving Catalan officials since the campaign to hold an independence vote began in earnest in 2011 — prompted the regional government and some of its supporters to say casting a ballot was as much about dignity as whether to break away from Spain.
Regional Catalan officials so far have vowed to ignore a Constitutional Court order to suspend the Oct. 1 referendum while judges assess its legality.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned them of “greater harm” if they don’t drop the referendum bid, which he called a “totalitarian act.”
“Disobedience of the law by a part of the political power is the opposite of democracy, it means an imposition, an injustice, the violation of people’s rights and an attack to democracy,” Rajoy said in a televised appearance on Wednesday night.
“If you care about the tranquility of most Catalans, give up this escalation of radicalism and disobedience,” the conservative leader said, addressing Catalan officials directly. “You are on time to avoid a greater harm.”
Catalan nationalists argue that self-determination is an inalienable right that can’t be curbed by any constitution. The prime minister’s determination to prevent the ballot has backing from the main Spanish opposition parties.
Some members of Rajoy’s conservative government have even referred to the standoff as democratic Spain’s greatest political crisis since 1981, a failed coup attempt in the country’s parliament that came only three years after the official end of Gen. Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
Spanish Interior Ministry officials would not identify the arrested regional officials, saying the investigation was ongoing. The Catalan regional government confirmed that among them were Josep Maria Jove, secretary general of economic affairs, and Lluis Salvado, secretary of taxation. Jove is the No. 2 to the region’s vice president and economy chief, Oriol Junqueras.
The Catalonia branch of Spain’s High Court said Wednesday that some 20 people were being investigated for alleged disobedience, abuse of power and embezzlement related to the referendum. Police acting on a judge’s orders searched 42 premises, including six regional government offices, officials’ private offices and homes, as well as three companies in Barcelona, the court said in a statement.
The arrests risked stoking public anger in Catalonia, where pro-independence passions can run high. Several thousand independence supporters gathered to angrily protest the raids outside government offices in Barcelona, which is Catalonia’s capital. Some demonstrators sat down in the street to block police cars, while a few scuffled with police officers.
Later, protesters rejoiced when National Police officers left the headquarters of the anti-establishment CUP political party. The officers waited hours for a judge to sign off on a warrant to search the premises for referendum-related propaganda, but the permission never came.
Protests also occurred in other Catalan towns and in Spain’s capital, Madrid. There were no reports of arrests and one person was reported injured, according to the regional police.
At the demonstration outside the Catalan regional ministry of economy, protester Charo Rovira said she felt sad at the turn of events.
“Catalonia is practically in a state of siege,” she said. She added that the arrested politicians were merely acting according to the will of the people.
Catalonia’s president, Carles Puigdemont, blasted the police operations as “unlawful” and accused the national government of adopting a “totalitarian attitude.” He accused Madrid of bringing a state of emergency to Catalonia and of effectively canceling the northeastern region’s self-rule.
His televised statement came as Spain’s Finance Ministry said it was imposing further controls over the Catalan government’s finances to ensure no public money is used for the referendum.
Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro’s order means that virtually all of Catalonia’s public spending will be handled in Madrid and that no credits could be requested for non-essential payments.
Catalonia represents a fifth of Spain’s 1.1-trillion-euro ($1.32 trillion) economy and enjoys wide self-government authority, although key areas such as infrastructure and taxes are in the hands of central authorities. The region’s 7.5 million inhabitants overwhelmingly favor holding a referendum, but are roughly evenly divided over independence.
As part of the crackdown, police confiscated nearly 10 million ballot papers, the Interior Ministry said. Polling station signs and documents for election officers were also seized during a raid on a warehouse in a small town outside Barcelona.
“Today the government of Rajoy has crossed a very dangerous red line,” Jordi Sanchez, president of Catalan National Assembly, a civic group leading the independence drive said. “We will do all we can for democracy and freedom to prevail.”
Barcelona Football Club, which is popular around the world, waded into the controversy, too. The soccer team said it “condemns any act that may impede the free exercise of (democratic) rights” and vowed to “continue to support the will of the majority of Catalan people, and will do so in a civil, peaceful, and exemplary way.”
Spain’s Interior Ministry canceled time off and scheduled leave for Civil Guard and National Police officers who are being deployed to ensure the vote doesn’t happen. It gave no details on the number of agents involved.
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AP photographer Emilio Morenatti and videographer Hernan Munoz contributed from Barcelona. Barry Hatton contributed from Lisbon, Portugal.
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Clash over Catalan vote heats up in Spain as police swoop in
Clash over Catalan vote heats up in Spain as police swoop in
A macabre dispute has kept the body of Zambia’s former president unburied for months
LUSAKA: More than eight months after his death, former Zambian President Edgar Lungu’s remains are still in a South African funeral home, the subject of a macabre fight between his family and the longtime rival who succeeded him.
A graphic symbol of the dispute: an unfilled, coffin-size hole in a cemetery in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, where the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, had hoped Lungu would be buried in a state funeral. But Lungu, in his last days, told his family members that Hichilema, even as a mourner, should never go near his body.
The matter has gone to the courts, which have repeatedly sided with Zambian authorities over Lungu’s wishes. Lungu’s family persists in seeking a burial that sidelines Hichilema.
So the body lies frozen in South Africa, where Lungu died, while Zambia endures a scandalous saga that offends traditional beliefs and raises many questions in a country where it is taboo to fail to bury the dead promptly and with dignity.
Behind the impasse is a long-running feud between two political rivals. It also reflects a spiritual contest between Hichilema, who is up for reelection in August, and Lungu, who is said to be fighting back from the dead, according to scholars and religious leaders who spoke to The Associated Press.
A spiritual battle
“It has shifted from the physical, it has shifted from politics, and it is now a spiritual battle,” said Bishop Anthony Kaluba of Life of Christ congregation in Lusaka.
Hichilema’s supporters see Lungu’s will as casting a curse, while they say a state funeral attended by Hichilema would be an act of generosity toward Lungu and his family.
The fight over a corpse can seem bizarre to others, but Lungu’s directive resonates with many Zambians.
Some have barred their enemies from attending their funerals, often blaming them for misfortune. Those quarrels are usually more private, not like the public drama of a former president who, facing death, retaliates against his rival in the harsh language of his ancestors.
Across Africa, last words are a “vital force” to enhance life or block it, said Chammah J. Kaunda, a Zambian professor of African Pentecostal theology who serves as academic dean of the Oxford Center for Mission Studies.
Elders facing death can impose curses or give blessings, and Lungu’s case shows that curses “can acquire a life of their own,” he said.
A vibrant democracy with traditional beliefs
Zambia is a vibrant democracy. Its founding president was the genial, handkerchief-waving Kenneth Kaunda, who was voted out of power in 1991, despite his status as an independence hero.
Like Kaunda, subsequent presidents have been civilians lacking the military strength of various authoritarians elsewhere in Africa, giving Zambia’s presidential hopefuls the opportunity to run on their own merits.
Even so, there’s a perception that some political leaders — like many of their compatriots — worry they might be bewitched. The feeling is widespread in a country where traditional religion thrives alongside Christianity, and a spoken curse is dreaded by many as spiritually enforceable if provoked by injustice.
“It is a weapon,” said Herbert Sinyangwe of WayLife Ministries in Lusaka. “We believe in our culture that curses work.”
In the case of three recent presidents — Michael Sata, Lungu and Hichilema — suspicion was rampant. The official presidential residence is now thought by many to be under a deadly spell because all the six former presidents are now dead. Hichilema works there but sleeps elsewhere.
Sata, who was president from 2011 to 2014, worried that Hichilema, then an opposition figure, was victimizing him even as he asserted that charms from his own region were stronger. Zambian authorities last year had two men convicted and jailed for allegedly plotting to kill the president by magic. Lungu’s family doesn’t trust Hichilema.
An empty tomb
The spot in Lusaka that would be Lungu’s tomb was quickly dug and built before it was known that Lungu’s family had objections, said cemetery caretaker Allen Banda. He warned that a tomb without a corpse was akin to digging “your own grave.”
“If nobody goes there, culturally it’s your body that’s going to go there,” he said.
That Hichilema is willing to risk public anger in opposing Lungu’s family has reinforced the views of those who see a spiritual battle between him and Lungu.
“On the one hand, nearly everything done by the Lungu family so far seems to have been designed to deny Hichilema access to Lungu’s body,” said Sishuwa Sishuwa, a Zambian historian who is a visiting scholar at Harvard. “On the other, Hichilema’s conduct so far suggests that he will do whatever it takes to secure access to Lungu’s corpse, perhaps because the president sees the issue as a matter of life and death.”
Lungu died June 5, 2025, after surgery-related complications. He was 68, and was treated for a narrowing of the esophagus.
A fight in court
To organize a state funeral, Zambian authorities would need to take custody of Lungu’s remains until they were interred. But Lungu’s family resisted Hichilema’s plans during negotiations over funeral proceedings.
They preferred to transport the corpse by private charter and had hoped to keep it at Lungu’s residence at night. They picked three people to look after it during the state funeral that never happened.
When Lungu’s family concluded that their wishes were not likely to be followed, they opted for a private funeral in South Africa. They were moving ahead with that ceremony when they found out that Zambian authorities had blocked it.
A South African court ruled in August that Zambian authorities could take Lungu’s body home for burial.
Bertha Lungu, the former president’s sister, was inconsolable in the courtroom after the ruling, wailing and cursing at Mulilo Kabesha, Zambia’s attorney general, who said it was time to take the corpse home. She asserted that Hichilema wanted the corpse for ritual purposes.
Hichilema denies malice toward Lungu, and has said his Christian faith forbids belief in traditional religion.
A bitter rivalry
Lungu rose to power after Sata’s death in 2014. Sata’s vice president, Guy Scott, was ineligible to seek the presidency in a 2015 vote and Lungu was picked to finish Sata’s term.
His main opponent was Hichilema, a wealthy businessman. It was a close race — Lungu won by under 28,000 votes.
After the 2016 election, won again by Lungu, Hichilema faced treason charges and was jailed for four months for allegedly failing to yield to the presidential motorcade.
Five years later, Lungu lost to Hichilema and said he would retire from politics. He changed his mind in 2023, and Zambian authorities withdrew Lungu’s retirement benefits.
Lungu faced more pressure after his wife and daughter were arrested in 2024 over fraud allegations tied to property acquisition.
When he fell sick, Lungu found it hard to leave Zambia. The government restricted his travels. He managed to slip away to South Africa early in 2025, buying a ticket at the airport counter. The incident was reported by the local press as a security lapse over which an airport manager was fired.
Lungu is “still influencing our politics from the grave,” said Emmanuel Mwamba, a Zambian diplomat who speaks for Lungu’s party. “His issues remain. How he was treated in life and how he was treated in death.”
A graphic symbol of the dispute: an unfilled, coffin-size hole in a cemetery in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, where the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, had hoped Lungu would be buried in a state funeral. But Lungu, in his last days, told his family members that Hichilema, even as a mourner, should never go near his body.
The matter has gone to the courts, which have repeatedly sided with Zambian authorities over Lungu’s wishes. Lungu’s family persists in seeking a burial that sidelines Hichilema.
So the body lies frozen in South Africa, where Lungu died, while Zambia endures a scandalous saga that offends traditional beliefs and raises many questions in a country where it is taboo to fail to bury the dead promptly and with dignity.
Behind the impasse is a long-running feud between two political rivals. It also reflects a spiritual contest between Hichilema, who is up for reelection in August, and Lungu, who is said to be fighting back from the dead, according to scholars and religious leaders who spoke to The Associated Press.
A spiritual battle
“It has shifted from the physical, it has shifted from politics, and it is now a spiritual battle,” said Bishop Anthony Kaluba of Life of Christ congregation in Lusaka.
Hichilema’s supporters see Lungu’s will as casting a curse, while they say a state funeral attended by Hichilema would be an act of generosity toward Lungu and his family.
The fight over a corpse can seem bizarre to others, but Lungu’s directive resonates with many Zambians.
Some have barred their enemies from attending their funerals, often blaming them for misfortune. Those quarrels are usually more private, not like the public drama of a former president who, facing death, retaliates against his rival in the harsh language of his ancestors.
Across Africa, last words are a “vital force” to enhance life or block it, said Chammah J. Kaunda, a Zambian professor of African Pentecostal theology who serves as academic dean of the Oxford Center for Mission Studies.
Elders facing death can impose curses or give blessings, and Lungu’s case shows that curses “can acquire a life of their own,” he said.
A vibrant democracy with traditional beliefs
Zambia is a vibrant democracy. Its founding president was the genial, handkerchief-waving Kenneth Kaunda, who was voted out of power in 1991, despite his status as an independence hero.
Like Kaunda, subsequent presidents have been civilians lacking the military strength of various authoritarians elsewhere in Africa, giving Zambia’s presidential hopefuls the opportunity to run on their own merits.
Even so, there’s a perception that some political leaders — like many of their compatriots — worry they might be bewitched. The feeling is widespread in a country where traditional religion thrives alongside Christianity, and a spoken curse is dreaded by many as spiritually enforceable if provoked by injustice.
“It is a weapon,” said Herbert Sinyangwe of WayLife Ministries in Lusaka. “We believe in our culture that curses work.”
In the case of three recent presidents — Michael Sata, Lungu and Hichilema — suspicion was rampant. The official presidential residence is now thought by many to be under a deadly spell because all the six former presidents are now dead. Hichilema works there but sleeps elsewhere.
Sata, who was president from 2011 to 2014, worried that Hichilema, then an opposition figure, was victimizing him even as he asserted that charms from his own region were stronger. Zambian authorities last year had two men convicted and jailed for allegedly plotting to kill the president by magic. Lungu’s family doesn’t trust Hichilema.
An empty tomb
The spot in Lusaka that would be Lungu’s tomb was quickly dug and built before it was known that Lungu’s family had objections, said cemetery caretaker Allen Banda. He warned that a tomb without a corpse was akin to digging “your own grave.”
“If nobody goes there, culturally it’s your body that’s going to go there,” he said.
That Hichilema is willing to risk public anger in opposing Lungu’s family has reinforced the views of those who see a spiritual battle between him and Lungu.
“On the one hand, nearly everything done by the Lungu family so far seems to have been designed to deny Hichilema access to Lungu’s body,” said Sishuwa Sishuwa, a Zambian historian who is a visiting scholar at Harvard. “On the other, Hichilema’s conduct so far suggests that he will do whatever it takes to secure access to Lungu’s corpse, perhaps because the president sees the issue as a matter of life and death.”
Lungu died June 5, 2025, after surgery-related complications. He was 68, and was treated for a narrowing of the esophagus.
A fight in court
To organize a state funeral, Zambian authorities would need to take custody of Lungu’s remains until they were interred. But Lungu’s family resisted Hichilema’s plans during negotiations over funeral proceedings.
They preferred to transport the corpse by private charter and had hoped to keep it at Lungu’s residence at night. They picked three people to look after it during the state funeral that never happened.
When Lungu’s family concluded that their wishes were not likely to be followed, they opted for a private funeral in South Africa. They were moving ahead with that ceremony when they found out that Zambian authorities had blocked it.
A South African court ruled in August that Zambian authorities could take Lungu’s body home for burial.
Bertha Lungu, the former president’s sister, was inconsolable in the courtroom after the ruling, wailing and cursing at Mulilo Kabesha, Zambia’s attorney general, who said it was time to take the corpse home. She asserted that Hichilema wanted the corpse for ritual purposes.
Hichilema denies malice toward Lungu, and has said his Christian faith forbids belief in traditional religion.
A bitter rivalry
Lungu rose to power after Sata’s death in 2014. Sata’s vice president, Guy Scott, was ineligible to seek the presidency in a 2015 vote and Lungu was picked to finish Sata’s term.
His main opponent was Hichilema, a wealthy businessman. It was a close race — Lungu won by under 28,000 votes.
After the 2016 election, won again by Lungu, Hichilema faced treason charges and was jailed for four months for allegedly failing to yield to the presidential motorcade.
Five years later, Lungu lost to Hichilema and said he would retire from politics. He changed his mind in 2023, and Zambian authorities withdrew Lungu’s retirement benefits.
Lungu faced more pressure after his wife and daughter were arrested in 2024 over fraud allegations tied to property acquisition.
When he fell sick, Lungu found it hard to leave Zambia. The government restricted his travels. He managed to slip away to South Africa early in 2025, buying a ticket at the airport counter. The incident was reported by the local press as a security lapse over which an airport manager was fired.
Lungu is “still influencing our politics from the grave,” said Emmanuel Mwamba, a Zambian diplomat who speaks for Lungu’s party. “His issues remain. How he was treated in life and how he was treated in death.”
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