Hundred arrested after youth protest unrest in Barcelona
Around 600 young people mobilised through social media staged looting, barricades and fires in central Barcelona on Saturday. Catalan police detained one hundred people, a quarter of them minors.
Violence and vandalism in central Barcelona
According to dw.com, a gathering of approximately 600 young people in Plaça de Catalunya resulted in looting, clashes with police and destruction of street furniture on Saturday afternoon. Authorities detained one hundred people for the disturbances, of whom around 25 were minors.
The mobilisation circulated on social media without being linked to any specific demand. Interior Conseller Núria Parlon and Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni described the incidents as "gratuitous violence and vandalism" not associated with the housing encampment that had occupied the square for weeks.
The first incidents began around 18:00, when groups of young people, mostly dressed in black, began attacking commercial establishments. The protesters looted fourteen shops in the city centre, including electronics, clothing, footwear and optician stores. Shop windows were smashed and merchandise stolen.
The Guardia Urbana closed access to the square from Urquinaona to Universitat. El Corte Inglés and other businesses pulled down shutters and reinforced shop windows with wooden boards. Hundreds of customers were temporarily trapped inside establishments, some of whom were evacuated through back and emergency exits.
As the afternoon progressed, isolated groups of masked protesters set fire to street furniture, café canopies and built barricades with rubbish bins, burning motorbikes and bicycles. Riot police charged at the young people, who dispersed in groups around the square.
Mayor Collboni announced that the city council would join the legal proceedings and warned that the disturbances "will have consequences" for the detained adults and for the parents of the minors. Catalan authorities consider the protest a possible "mirror" of violent mobilisations organised simultaneously in several European cities under the slogan "indignant schools", also used by French students in their demonstrations in the previous days.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)