Catalans

Catalan musician Josep Tero's relationship to Greece was defined by two significant incidents. The first was his arrest and 12-hour incarceration during the dictatorship in 1973 for photographing the security police's headquarters on Bouboulinas Street in Athens, known as the "abattoir" for the brutal interrogations that took place within its walls.

Two hundred thousand people, some of them with candles in hand, demonstrated on Tuesday evening in Barcelona. The protest is against Monday's arrest of two activists in the struggle for independence of Catalonia, AFP reports. The data on the number people participating in the event is from the municipal police.

Various groups in different parts of the world have started demanding the right to self-determination. Currently, the Catalans lead the way as the police violence engulfed recent referendum for Catalan independence in Spain and left around 800 people injured.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Catalonia's capital Barcelona on Sunday to express their opposition to declaring independence from Spain, showing how divided the region is on the issue, reported Reuters. 

The leader of the Autonomous Region of Catalonia accused the King of supporting the position of the central government. Carles Puigdemont again called Madrid for dialogue, reports Bnt. 

While some politicians who support regional autonomy in the Balkans have come out in support of the Catalan referendum, most national governments - wary of separatism in their own countries - have lined up behind Spain.

Supporters and opponents of Catalonia's right to hold an independence referendum from Spain have emerged on forseeable lines in the Balkans.

The overwhelming majority of Catalans who participated in the banned referendum have voted in favor of independence from Spain, the Catalan government has announced.

Catalonia's public prosecutor has ordered the seizure of all ballot papers ahead of a banned independence referendum deemed illegal, reported BBC. 

The vote on breaking away from Spain, planned for 1 October, has been suspended by the constitutional court.
But Catalonia's pro-independence government says it will still go ahead.

Catalans voted Sept. 27 in an election dubbed crucial for the future of Spain, with polls pointing to a win by separatists who vow to declare the region independent by 2017.

After a lifetime of hard work in Catalonia, Rafael Corpus was looking forward to a quiet retirement tending his garden.    

But his golden years have been clouded by a family problem - his son is part of the growing number of Catalans who want their wealthy northeastern region to break away from the rest of Spain.