Therese Raphael, Columnist

Spain Can Blame Only Itself for Catalonia's Resistance

The government's heavy-handed attempt to put down the region’s referendum on independence has only inflamed separatist passions.

October 2, 2017 at 5:00 AM UTC

By Therese Raphael

Therese Raphael is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering health care and British politics. Previously, she was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.

Strong-arm tactics.
Photographer: Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stuck stubbornly to his script on Sunday night while the rest of the world watched an entirely different movie unfold in Catalonia. "There was no referendum. What we have seen was a mere dramatization," Rajoy insisted. He sounded a little like a Kremlin spokesperson brushing aside a separatist uprising in, say, Chechnya. Nothing to see here, folks.

Only there was plenty to see and cameras everywhere to document riot police firing rubber bullets into crowds of peaceful protesters, dragging voters by the hair and using truncheons. The injury estimates were continually revised higher; more than 800 were reportedly injured in clashes with Spanish police. Spanish authorities downplayed those reports.