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Catalan separatists clashed with police on Saturday in central Barcelona as tensions mounted before the anniversary of the illegal referendum on secession in the Spanish region, which ended in violent raids by security forces.
Separatists threw and sprayed a colored powder on the agents, filling the air with a thick rainbow cloud and covering riot shields, police vans and sidewalk. a downtown boulevard in a panoply of bright colors. Some protesters also threw objects and engaged with the police line, who used batons to restrain them.
The clashes erupted after the intervention of the local police when a separatist threw paint on a man who was participating in another march, in support of Spanish police demanding a pay rise. Officers used batons to repel the separatists and keep the groups separate.
Clashes with the local police increased as the separatists tried to enter the main square of the city of Barcelona, where the hundreds of people who supported the Spanish police had ended their demonstrations.
The separatist demonstrators arrived and surrounded the square, chanting: "The streets will always be ours!
They continued to march towards the other rally shouting "Get out of here, fascists" and "Independence". The police supporters responded by shouting "We will be victorious" and "Our cause is right!
Ada Colau, mayor of Barcelona, called for peace on a local radio station when the fighting broke out.
"I made a call for calm," Ms. Colau told Radio Catalunya. "This city has always argued that everyone can exercise their rights to freedom of expression."
The pro-police march was originally scheduled to end in another square, housing regional and municipal government headquarters, but thousands of separatists gathered in the square to force the regional authorities to change the route.
The police march was organized by the Jusapol Police Association, which wants the two Spanish police forces, the National Police and the Civil Guard, to be paid the same salary as the Regional Police of Catalonia.
Jusapol regularly organizes marches in Spanish cities, but Saturday's march in Barcelona took place just two days before the separatists of Catalonia remember the referendum on secession last year.
The October 1 referendum was tainted when National Police and Civil Guard agents clashed with voters, injuring hundreds of people. Images of the national police in riot gear using bullets and rubber batons to close the polls and seize the polluted urns quickly around the world.
A spokesman for Jusapol told Catalan TV3 TV that, if the protesters wanted to demand better wages, they also wanted to support the national police and the officers of the Civil Guard who had been ordered to dismantle the referendum of the last year.
"The agents of the National Police and the Civil Guard who acted last year were doing their duty and now they are under pressure and we must support them," said spokesman Antonio Vazquez.
Last year's police operation became a rallying call for separatists in Catalonia, who claim that it testified to the mistreatment inflicted on the region by Spain.
The pro-secession legislator Vidal Aragonés has called the police "an insult to the Catalan people".
"It's not acceptable," he said. "They came here to remember the violence that they used."
The Catalan government led by the separatists is asking the central Spanish authorities to authorize a binding vote on secession. Polls and recent elections show that the 7.5 million people in the region are about equally divided by the issue of secession.
