A man waves an Estelada (Catalan Sepratist flag) as people gather at Plaza Catalunya (Picture: Reuters)

Catalonia has ‘won the right to become an independent state’, Catalan president Carles Puigdemont said.

Speaking on television from Barcelona after polling stations closed in the northeastern region in Spain, Puigdemont said that ‘today the Spanish state wrote another shameful page in its history with Catalonia’.

On orders directly from Madrid, Spanish riot police stormed into polling stations across Catalonia to try and stop the independence referendum.

Officers beat and kicked voters, shooting them with rubber bullets and hitting them with their batons.


At least 844 people were reportedly injured in the horrificly violent raids.

Carles Puigdemont (centre) and his Cabinet giving a press statement on the Catalonia independence referendum (Picture; EPA)

A girl grimaces as Spanish National Police pushes away Pro-referendum supporters outside the Ramon Llull school assigned to be a polling station by the Catalan government in Barcelona (Picture: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Spanish National Police prevent people from entering a voting site at a school assigned to be a polling station (Picture: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Spanish police officers immobilise two people outside a polling station in Barcelona (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

Puigdemont said he would ‘make a direct appeal to the European Union’ to look into alleged human rights violations by the Spanish government.

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‘On this day of hope and suffering, Catalonia’s citizens have earned the right to have an independent state in the form of a republic,’ Puigdemont said.



‘My government, in the next few days, will send the results of today’s vote to the Catalan Parliament, where the sovereignty of our people lies, so that it can act in accordance with the law of the referendum.’

Preliminary results of the referendum point to an overwhelming majority of Catalans voting to form an independent state.

Spanish National Police clashes with pro-referendum supporters in Barcelona (Picture: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Women clash with Spanish Guardia Civil guards outside a polling station in Sarria de Ter (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

The vote had been banned by the constitutional court of Spain, and was declared illegal by Madrid.

Spain’s PM Mariano Rajoy denied that there had been a referendum at all in a televised address of his own.

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‘At this time I can tell you, with full clarity, what you all know and what we have seen today,’ he said.

‘Today, we have not had a referendum for self-determination in Catalonia. Today, all the Spaniards have seen that our state rule of law keeps its strength and reality, and restricts those who wish to subvert the state of law.’

Rajoy then praised the Spanish police for responding with ‘firmness and serenity’ to voters.