Spanish Guardia Civil demanding referendum event documents from TNC

JxSí president Turull calls police visit to national theater ‘outrageous’ while PPC leader Albiol calls it ‘normal’ when faced with ‘political coup’

General view of the event on July 4 at the National Theater of Catalonia (by ACN)
General view of the event on July 4 at the National Theater of Catalonia (by ACN) / N.Stokes / K.Schreiber

N.Stokes / K.Schreiber | Barcelona

July 13, 2017 03:28 PM

The Together for Yes (JxSí) pro-independence party is “outraged” by the order to send Guard Civil police into the National Theater of Catalonia (TNC in Catalan) on Thursday, to seize documents relating to the event held last week to present the referendum bill. On his Twitter account, party president, Jordi Turull, called the visit by the Spanish police “outrageous”, after the TNC alerted the party to the police visit.

However later in the day, Catalan People’s Party leader, Xavier García Albiol, said he was surprised by the JxSí reaction and called the police visit the “normal” reaction of a democratic state when “someone attempts to carry out a political coup.” The PPC leader added that the Guardia Civil officers did not visit the TNC “on a whim” but because “there was a court order that demanded they gather information."

Sources from the TNC told ACN that Guardia Civil officers arrived at the theater between 10 and 11am, with a court order demanding documentation relating to the event held in the venue on July 4. However, the police officers left without the information they demanded, and the TNC says that the event was carried out under the venue’s normal rental policy, along with the other 72 other events held there in the past year.