BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – The Latest on Catalonia’s plans to hold a referendum Sunday on breaking away from Spain (all times local):
6.25 a.m.
Some of the Catalans who are defying court orders to vote in a disputed referendum on their region’s secession from Spain say they want to send a strong message of displeasure with central authorities.
Pro-referendum supporters gather at the Escola Industrial, a school assigned to be a polling station by the Catalan government, in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. Catalan pro-referendum supporters vowed to ignore a police ultimatum to leave the schools they are occupying to use in a vote seeking independence from Spain.(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Activist Augsti Gil says there were no ballots or ballot boxes in Barcelona’s Joan Fuster high school where more than a hundred people have joined another hundred who spent the night occupying the designated polling station.
Gil says they expect materials to arrive Sunday morning ahead of the 9 a.m. opening of polls.
Joaquim Bosch, a 73 year-old retiree at Princep de Viana high school, where a crowd of 20 people was growing says he is uneasy about a possible police response to the crowds.
Bosch says: “I have come to vote to defend the rights of my country, which is Catalonia.”
People gather outside a school assigned to be a polling station by the Catalan government at the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain, early Sunday, 1 Oct. 2017. Catalan pro-referendum supporters vowed to ignore a police ultimatum to leave the schools they are occupying to use in a vote seeking independence from Spain. (AP Photo/Bob Edme)
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