Violent protest breaks out in Spain against amnesty for Catalan separatists

Police have clashed for a second night with protesters who oppose negotiations between Spain's acting government and Catalan separatist parties over a possible amnesty for thousands involved in Catalonia’s independence movement.

On Tuesday, several protestors in Madrid waved Spanish flags and shouted insults against the acting prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, and some of them self-identified as “nazis” in chants.

The protesters pushed against barriers set by police in riot gear, who responded with rubber bullets and by hitting the protestors with batons.

The government said that Tuesday's gathering at the gates of the national headquarters in Madrid of the ruling Socialist Party was attended by around 7,000, roughly double the number of protestors that took part the day before.

There were other similar protests in other Spanish cities.

Three people were arrested Monday, the central authorities' representative in the Spanish capital said, including two men for violent behaviour against police and one woman for disobedience.

Attacking democracy

A spokeswoman of the far-right Vox party, which holds the third-most seats in the national Parliament, said on Tuesday that the party did not back the violence seen at the gatherings, but that it supported the anti-government protest.

Vox's leader, Santiago Abascal, attended Monday's event in Madrid.

Sanchez, the Socialists' leader, blasted the protests, saying they were being led by “reactionaries.”

“(I extend) all my warmth and support for the Socialist Party members who are suffering harassment by reactionaries at their local headquarters,” Sanchez wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

“To attack the headquarters of Spain’s Socialist Party is to attack democracy.”

Sanchez is negotiating with the Catalan separatist parties to receive their backing in his bid to form a new government and keep his centre-left coalition in power following an inconclusive national election in July.

But the two separatist parties have demanded a sweeping amnesty that would include their leaders who fled Spain following their failed 2017 secession attempt, in exchange for their votes in Parliament, among other concessions.

That has angered many in Spain, including leading opposition parties on the right who accuse Sanchez of bending to lawbreakers.

Sanchez has until November 27 to form a new government or the Parliament will be automatically dissolved and new elections called for January.