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"That violent independence is behind is obvious and does not admit discussion." This was said by the acting Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, this Saturday from Barcelona, ​​after meeting with the Catalan Interior Minister, Miquel Buch , and senior police officers after the riots in the city on the night of this Friday.

These are "people prepared in the exercise of violence, organized, with a strategy and who knows what is coming," explained Grande-Marlaska, who described the violence as "indiscriminate and highly organized vandalism." "There is very serious violence, organized, with command," said the incumbent head of Interior, who said they are not "overwhelmed" by the situation of violence. "It is a serious public order situation, but to which the state is responding," he said.

The Interior Minister is the first member of the Government in office to travel to Barcelona since the judgment of the process was known and the serious violent incidents in Catalonia began. As soon as you arrive in Barcelona, ​​you have gone to the hospital where the National Police agents were wounded on Friday night, during the riots in Vía Laetana, and then went to Cecor, the center from which the performance of police forces.

The minister has defended the actions of the State Security Forces and Bodies by ensuring that "the Mossos, the Police and the Civil Guard have acted on proportionality parameters", a term in which he has repeatedly insisted throughout his appearance before the media. "The monopoly of violence has the State to ensure the safety of citizens," he said, while "regrets" that there are injured protesters.

"The color of the uniform doesn't matter"

"In what depends on the Government of Spain they will always have recognition and gratitude," he said of the three police bodies, of which he has assured that they work in "coordination". "The color of the uniform doesn't matter," he added.

Grande-Marlaska has made an evaluation of the injured agents, which it has coded in 101, only this Friday, and in more than 300 since Monday, October 14, the date on which the sentence of the process was known . Moreover, it has quantified in 43 vehicles of the Mossos and 221 of the National Police, the shattered cars. The agents with whom he has spoken "agree to highlight the extreme virulence" of the groups that are starring in the riots, said the minister, who has reported that 83 people and 300 were arrested this Friday so far this week.

"The agents themselves state that they have rarely had to face violence at this level," Marlaska said, referring to his meeting with the injured police, which is the first thing he has done when he arrived in Barcelona, ​​to visit them.

In relation to Quim Torra, the minister does not understand that, "after five" days of violence in Catalonia, "one way or another there is no firm conviction by President Torra or the members of his Government." "No one understands that they make statements minutes and minutes, but do not condemn the violence," Marlaska said.

The minister has made it clear that he has gone to Barcelona "first of all to make a recognition of the very high personal cost that the national police, the Mossos, the Civil Guard are suffering, and also in part the urban guard who are working side by side in situations tremendously difficult. "

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Know more

  • Barcelona
  • Catalonia
  • National Police
  • Violence Catalonia
  • Proced judgment
  • Fernando Grande-Marlaska

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