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Spain accuses Catalan government of ‘inciting rebellion’

Spain's interior minister on Tuesday accused Catalonia's government of "inciting rebellion" after police sent to the region to block a weekend independence referendum were harassed by protesters.

Spain accuses Catalan government of 'inciting rebellion'
Protestors gather outside National Police headquarters in Barcelona during a general strike. Photo: AFP

“We see how day after day the government of Catalonia is pushing the population to the abyss and inciting rebellion in the streets,” Juan Ignacio Zoido said, adding that his government would take “all measures necessary to stop acts of harassment”.

Spanish national police have been driven out of their hotels in Catalonia by locals furious over police violence that marred the region's banned independence vote on Sunday, which separatist leaders organised despite strict orders from Madrid not to do so.

Hundreds of protesters gathered overnight outside a hotel in the seaside resort of Pineda de Mar, about 70 kilometres (40 miles) north of Barcelona where around 200 officers were staying.

READ MORE: Catalan hotels evict police as crowds protest violence at the polls

In a letter shared on social media, the hotel management said it had asked police officers to leave the hotel after being “obliged” to do so by local authorities on pain of being shut down.

A further 200 members of Spanish special forces and riot police in Calella, a coastal city also to the north of Barcelona, were told on Monday they would be evicted.

Protestors also rallied outside police stations in Catalonia, according to Spain's main police union SUP.

On Sunday riot police moved in on polling stations across the region to stop people from voting in a referendum deemed unconstitutional by the Spanish courts.   

AS-IT-HAPPENED: Clashes at polling stations as Catalans vote in referendum

Some officers ran baton charges and fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds.   

SUP spokesman Ramon Cosio said the welfare of officers was now under threat.

“They are fleeing from hotel to hotel, they are like rats who have to hide,” he said.   

He added that the state was losing control of security.     

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria branded the protests against police outside hotels and police stations “mafia behaviour”. 

READ ALSO: Catalans take to the streets as general strike shuts down region

POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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