BRUSSELS: A sea of around 45,000 pro-Catalonia protesters
demonstrated in Brussels on Thursday to show support for the region’s
deposed president Carles Puigdemont and urge the EU to support its drive
for independence from Spain.
Demonstrators chanted “Wake
up Europe!” and waved Catalonia’s red, yellow and blue Estelada
separatist flag as they marched past the European Union headquarters in
the Belgian capital.
“We cannot abandon our president,
who is in exile here,” Antoni Llenas, 59, a protester wearing a flag
over his shoulders, said. “We are here to continue the struggle for our
independence and to ask for the freedom of our political prisoners.”
Belgian
police said on Twitter that there were an estimated 45,000 protesters,
more than double the 20,000 that organisers said they originally
expected. The rally began peacefully, according reporters on the
scene.
Puigdemont and four former ministers fled to
Brussels in November, saying they wanted to take their cause to the
European level after Spain charged them with sedition and rebellion over
Catalonia’s independence referendum in October.
On
Monday, the Spanish government dropped a European arrest warrant for the
five, but Puigdemont said he would stay put for now as they still face
arrest in Spain if they return for regional polls in Catalonia that
Madrid has called for December 21.
Protesters arrived in a
stream of coaches and camper vans with Spanish registration plates, and
gathered in the Cinquantenaire Park in the city’s European quarter
before the start of the march.
Children and families were among those who began the march in high spirits despite the cold and rain.
