Activists blocked roads in Catalonia before daybreak on Thursday at the start of a region-wide strike against the trial of separatist leaders for their role in a failed secession attempt in 2017.

Traffic authorities in the northeastern region said they had cut off around 20 roads, including the A7 highway that links Spain to France, the A2 between Madrid and Barcelona and the main entry points to the Mediterranean city.

Activists also blocked train traffic by occupying the tracks on two railway lines, according to the company that manages Spain's rail network.

The one-day strike has been called by Intersindical CSC, a small pro-independence union, to protest against the trial of 12 separatist leaders that opened last week at Madrid's Supreme Court.

The union has the support of separatist parties and associations, but not of the other bigger unions.

The Catalan employers' association, meanwhile, has denounced the work stoppage as politically-motivated.

The region's separatist government has expressed solidarity with the strike and cancelled all official events planned for Thursday.

The trial of 12 Catalan separatist leaders and activists, nine of whom are accused of rebellion, started on February 12 under intense domestic and foreign scrutiny.

They are being tried for pushing an independence referendum in October 2017 in defiance of a court ban, and for a subsequent short-lived declaration of independence on October 27.

Catalonia's former president Carles Puigdemont, who fled for Belgium soon after, is not among the defendants as Spain doesn't judge people in absentia for major offences. </s> Traffic authorities in the northeastern region said they had cut off around 20 roads, including the A7 highway that links Spain to France, the A2 between Madrid and Barcelona and the main entry points to the Mediterranean city.

READ MORE: Catalan separarists' trial: What you need to know

Police cleared several of the road blocks and detained two protesters, a spokesman said.

Activists also briefly blocked train traffic by occupying the tracks at a station in Barcelona and in other parts of the region, according to the company that manages Spain's rail network.

At midday, hundreds protested in the central University Square, where the city's oldest university stands, and another demonstration is planned for the evening.

"We're here in solidarity with those who are victims of a trial that just doesn't hold water," said Jaume Sole, a 45-year-old engineer.

The one-day strike has been called by Intersindical CSC, a small pro-independence union, to protest against the trial of 12 separatist leaders that opened last week at Madrid's Supreme Court.

The union has the support of separatist parties and associations, but not of the other bigger unions.

The Catalan employers' association, meanwhile, has denounced the work stoppage as politically-motivated.

The region's separatist government has expressed solidarity with the strike and cancelled all official events planned for Thursday.

The trial of 12 Catalan separatist leaders and activists, nine of whom are accused of rebellion, started on February 12th under intense domestic and foreign scrutiny.

They are being tried for pushing an independence referendum in October 2017 in defiance of a court ban, and for a subsequent short-lived declaration of independence on October 27th.

Catalonia's former president Carles Puigdemont, who fled for Belgium soon after, is not among the defendants as Spain doesn't judge people in absentia for major offences.

READ ALSO: Spain's King Felipe speaks out during Catalan separatists' trial </s> Activists blocked roads and rail lines in Catalonia on Thursday as a region-wide strike began against the trial of separatist leaders for their role in a failed 2017 secession attempt.

Called by a small pro-independence union, Intersindical CSC, but without the backing of larger unions, the one-day strike was not widely followed in the northeastern region although it generated several protests.

Public transport in Barcelona was slower than usual but most shops remained open.

Traffic authorities in Catalonia said activists cut off around 20 roads, including the A7 highway that links Spain to France, the A2 between Madrid and Barcelona and the main entry points to the Mediterranean city.

Police cleared several of the road blocks and detained two protesters, a spokesman said.

Activists also briefly blocked train traffic by occupying the tracks at a station in Barcelona and in other parts of the region, according to the company that manages Spain’s rail network.

At midday, hundreds protested in the central University Square, where the city’s oldest university stands, and another demonstration is planned for the evening.

“We’re here in solidarity with those who are victims of a trial that just doesn’t hold water,” said Jaume Sole, a 45-year-old engineer.

The Catalan employers’ association has denounced the work stoppage as politically motivated.

Separatist parties and associations are backing it.

They began mobilising last week in solidarity with the Catalan separatist leaders on trial for pushing a secession referendum in October 2017 in defiance of a court ban, and a subsequent short-lived declaration of independence.

On Saturday, around 200,000 people including regional president Quim Torra protested in central Barcelona, police said, behind a banner that read “self-determination is not a crime.”

Torra’s separatist executive has expressed solidarity with the strike and cancelled all official events planned for Thursday.

The trial of the Catalan separatists started on February 12 under intense domestic and foreign scrutiny.

It was due to last three months but the court on Wednesday sped up the process to try and finish the trial before snap general elections on April 28.

Catalonia’s former president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium soon after the declaration of independence on October 27, 2017, is not among the defendants as Spain doesn’t judge people in absentia for major offences.

So far, those on trial have defended the peaceful nature of the secession movement.

They have justified holding the referendum on a democratic mandate they say they got from voters in Catalonia who handed separatist parties a majority in 2015 polls.

This prompted unusually outspoken comments from King Felipe VI on Wednesday who said it was “unacceptable to appeal to a so-called democracy that is above the law.”

Defendants have also said the proclamation of independence was a mere political declaration without legal effect.

On Thursday, Santi Vila, a regional government member at the time, said the referendum was actually “a big political mobilisation” rather than a plebiscite given the Constitutional Court had banned it.

“It was about tightening the rope without it breaking,” Vila, who faces up to seven years in jail for misuse of public funds and disobedience, told the court.

Prosecutors accuse the defendants of implementing a strategy concerted by the regional government, parliament and pro-independence associations to achieve secession outside the law.

They accuse nine of them of rebellion, a serious offence that implies a “violent uprising.”

Prosecutors point for instance to damage made to police cars during a pre-referendum protest on September 20, 2017, or claim separatists used citizens as “human walls” against police dispatched to stop the referendum.

Independence supporters and the defendant’s lawyers, however, argue there was never any violence.

Jordi Sanchez, head of the powerful ANC pro-independence association who was at the protest on September 20 and faces up to 17 years in prison, accused prosecutors of “criminalising and penalising a demonstration.” </s> BARCELONA, Spain -- Strikers backing Catalonia's secession from Spain blocked major highways, train tracks and roads across the northeastern region on Thursday to protest the trial of a dozen separatist leaders.

The general strike was organized by small unions of pro-independence workers and students. On paper, they are demanding improved social policies including a 35-hour work week and a higher minimum wage, but the protesters carried pro-secession flags and chanted slogans for the release of the 12 separatists currently on trial in the Madrid-based Supreme Court.

Regional police reported some clashes as strikers formed human chains to stop traffic on several highways across Catalonia.

One protester was arrested for hitting an officer in downtown Barcelona, police said. Strikers, many of whom covered their faces, threw objects at a police line in a standoff on a rural highway before agents in riot gear advanced to disperse them. Protesters elsewhere burned tires on some highways.

Catalonia's transit authorities said the disruptions affected main thoroughfares in Barcelona and half a dozen major highways and railway tracks elsewhere in Catalonia.

The main unions in Catalonia did not back the strike.

In Barcelona, students and the pro-secession group ANC were planning separate marches later Thursday. ANC's protest slogan is "self-determination is not a crime." The Spanish government says regions cannot independently secede, according to the Constitution.

The trial into the roles played by the 12 separatists in Catalonia's failed 2017 secession attempt is in its second week. On Thursday, former Catalan government member Santi Vila and activists Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart are scheduled to testify at the court. The trial is expected to last for at least three months.

Election results and polls indicate that Catalonia's 7.5 million residents are equally divided over the secession issue. </s> Strikers advocating for Catalonia to secede from Spain are blocking major highways, train tracks and roads across the northeastern region.

Thursday's general strike has been organized by unions of pro-independence workers and students. On paper, they are demanding improved social policies including a 35-hour work week and a higher minimum wage but the protests are being fueled by outrage at Spain for putting on trial a dozen separatists who pushed for Catalan independence in 2017.

Catalonia's transit authorities say the disruptions are affecting main thoroughfares in Barcelona and half a dozen major highways and railway tracks elsewhere in Catalonia. Protesters burned tires at one of the highways.

In Barcelona, students and the pro-secession group ANC are holding separate marches later Thursday. ANC's protest slogan is "self-determination is not a crime." </s> The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.

MADRID (AP) — Strikers advocating for Catalonia to secede from Spain are blocking major highways, train tracks and roads across the northeastern region.

Thursday’s general strike has been organized by unions of pro-independence workers and students. On paper, they are demanding improved social policies including a 35-hour work week and a higher minimum wage but the protests are being fueled by outrage at Spain for putting on trial a dozen separatists who pushed for Catalan independence in 2017.

Catalonia’s transit authorities say the disruptions are affecting main thoroughfares in Barcelona and half a dozen major highways and railway tracks elsewhere in Catalonia. Protesters burned tires at one of the highways.

In Barcelona, students and the pro-secession group ANC are holding separate marches later Thursday. ANC’s protest slogan is “self-determination is not a crime.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. </s> Barcelona (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Barcelona on Sunday to protest the jailing of nine Catalan separatist leaders facing trial on "rebellion" charges.

Chanting "Freedom for the political prisoners", they marched along Parallel Avenue, a main thoroughfare, many waving the red-and-yellow Catalan flag.

The protest comes six months after the first incarcerations of top Catalan separatist leaders for misuse of public funds, sedition and rebellion -- which carries a prison sentence of 30 years and implies that a "violent uprising" took place -- over their separatist push.

"Since they could not decapitate separatism, they are trying to do it through the courts," Roser Urgelles, a 59-year-old teacher, told AFP at the protest.

"They need to demonstrate that there was violence to execute the sentences that they want, so they invent it," she said, adding: "But we will continue to protest peacefully."

Like thousands of others at the march, she wore a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with the jailed leaders, whom Catalan separatists consider to be "political prisoners".

Spain's justice minister, Rafael Catala, has called the use of yellow ribbons "insulting", arguing that Spain has no political prisoners but "politicians in prison".

The Guardia Urbana, a Catalan municipal police force, said 315,000 people turned out.

The demonstration was organised by two grassroots independence groups, the ANC and Omnium, whose presidents are among the nine separatist leaders in prison awaiting trial over their role in last year's failed breakaway bid by Catalonia.

A total of 957 buses brought protesters from across the wealthy northeastern region of Spain to Barcelona, the Catalan capital, for the march, the ANC said in a statement.

The protest was backed by the Catalan branches of Spain's two largest trade unions, the CCOO and the UGT, sparking unease among union members who oppose independence.

"There have been tensions (among unions members) just like in the rest of the Catalan society," the secretary general of the Catalan branch of UGT, Camil Ros, told AFP.

"But it is not a separatist protest. It is time to build bridges and the Catalan problem cannot be solved through the courts but by dialogue and politics."

The demonstration comes 10 days after a German court dismissed an extradition request for Catalonia's ousted separatist president Carles Puigdemont on grounds of rebellion and released him on bail.

Spanish prosecutors last week handed over new information to Germany they hope will prove the use of violence which would justify the rebellion charge against Puigdemont and their extradition request.

Puigdemont is also accused of misuse of public funds for staging an independence referendum in Catalonia on October 1 even though the courts had ruled it unconstitutional.

He tweeted from Germany that the march was "a great civic and democratic demonstration".

"We are European citizens who just want to live in peace, free and without fear," he added.

Since October 16 the leaders of Catalonia's two largest pro-independence groups -- Jordi Sanchez of the ANC and Jordi Cuixart of Omnium Jordi Cuixart -- have been in jail while they await their trial for rebellion.

Prosecutors say the two men played central roles in orchestrating pro-independence protests in September in Barcelona during which national police were trapped inside a government building for several hours and their vehicles were destroyed.

They are also accused of mobilising thousands of pro-independence supporters to prevent police from stopping the October 1 independence referendum from going ahead.

"What makes me sad is the accusation of violence, which never existed," Sanchez said in December on Twitter.

He was elected as a lawmaker in snap polls in Catalonia in December and has twice been proposed as a candidate to lead a new Catalan regional government, but a judge refused both times to allow him to leave jail to be sworn in.

Seven other Catalan separatist leaders are in jail in Spain while they await trial for rebellion, along with the two leaders of the grassroots separatist groups.

Catalonia has been in political limbo since Spain's conservative central government imposed direct rule on the region after it unilaterally declared independence in October.

Fresh regional elections will be triggered if a new leader is not elected by May 22.

In a letter sent from prison, former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras said that immediately forming a government was "a necessity" so that Catalonia could regain its political autonomy. </s> GIRONA - Catalan activist groups burned tyres and tried to block highways across northeast Spain on Thursday as part of a day of protests against the trial of 12 separatist political leaders for their part in a declaration of independence in 2017.

Eleven highways in Catalonia were affected by the protests, police reported, adding that they were working to keep traffic flowing. Police said there had been some scuffles with protesters but no major incidents were reported.

Members of local groups, working under the name Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CDRs), have staged similar protests across the region ever since the arrests following the illegal declaration of secession in the Catalan parliament.

The 12 Catalan separatist leaders went on trial in Madrid last week over the failed independence bid that triggered Spain’s biggest political crisis in decades.

On Thursday, pro-independence Catalans plan to strike as part of protests which will include marches held by supporters of civil groups Omnium and the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) at midday and a bigger march in the evening.

The extent of the strike was not immediately clear while police said major roads had been reopened after initial obstructions to traffic had been removed.

Former ANC leader Jordi Sanchez and the ex-head of Omnium Jordi Cuixart are in the dock on Thursday as part of the trial which is expected to last for at least three months.

Defendants face charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, which they all deny. </s> Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in downtown Barcelona on Sunday to demand the release of high-profile secessionist Catalan leaders being held in pre-trial detention.

Chanting "Freedom for the political prisoners," they marched along Parallel Avenue, a main thoroughfare, many waving the red-and-yellow Catalan flag.

The protest comes six months after the first incarcerations of top Catalan separatist leaders for misuse of public funds, sedition and rebellion -- which carries a prison sentence of 30 years and implies that a "violent uprising" took place -- over their separatist push.

"Since they could not decapitate separatism, they are trying to do it through the courts," Roser Urgelles, a 59-year-old teacher, told AFP at the protest.

"They need to demonstrate that there was violence to execute the sentences that they want, so they invent it," she said, adding: "But we will continue to protest peacefully."

Like thousands of others at the march, she wore a yellow ribbon to show solidarity with the jailed leaders, whom Catalan separatists consider to be "political prisoners."

Spain's justice minister, Rafael Catala, has called the use of yellow ribbons "insulting," arguing that Spain has no political prisoners but "politicians in prison".

The Guardia Urbana, a Catalan municipal police force, said 315,000 people turned out.

The demonstration was organized by two grassroots independence groups, the ANC and Omnium, whose presidents are among the nine separatist leaders in prison awaiting trial over their role in last year's failed breakaway bid by Catalonia.

A total of 957 buses brought protesters from across the wealthy northeastern region of Spain to Barcelona, the Catalan capital, for the march, the ANC said in a statement.

The protest was backed by the Catalan branches of Spain's two largest trade unions, the CCOO and the UGT, sparking unease among union members who oppose independence.

"There have been tensions [among unions members] just like in the rest of the Catalan society," the secretary general of the Catalan branch of UGT, Camil Ros, told AFP.

"But it is not a separatist protest. It is time to build bridges and the Catalan problem cannot be solved through the courts but by dialogue and politics."

The demonstration comes ten days after a German court dismissed an extradition request for Catalonia's ousted separatist president Carles Puigdemont on grounds of rebellion and released him on bail.

Spanish prosecutors last week handed over new information to Germany they hope will prove the use of violence which would justify the rebellion charge against Puigdemont and their extradition request.

Puigdemont is also accused of misuse of public funds for staging an independence referendum in Catalonia on Oct. 1 despite it having been ruled unconstitutional by the courts.

Alex de Ferrer, a 50-year-old IT specialist, said he`planned to take part in the protest because jailing separatist leaders "only serves to manufacture separatists."

The independence movement is "a bit decapitated" following the arrests of its leaders but "this is temporary," added de Ferrer, who supports leftist separatist party ERC, whose leader Oriol Junqueras is in jail.

The secession movement in the wealthy region has plunged Spain into its deepest institutional crisis in decades.

Separatist lawmakers defied court orders and held an ad-hoc referendum on independence in October. Their subsequent declaration of independence for the region led to a crackdown by Spanish authorities acting to defend the Spanish Constitution, which declares the nation "indivisible."

Pro-independence parties retained a slim majority in Catalonia's parliament after an election in December, but courts have blocked their attempts to elect as regional chief any lawmaker who is either behind bars or has fled the country.

Seven other Catalan separatist leaders are in jail in Spain while they await trial for rebellion, along with the two leaders of the grassroots separatist groups.

The latest opinion poll published by the Catalan government in February said that support for independence had decreased to 40 percent from near 49 percent in October. The poll surveyed 1,200 people and had a margin of error of 2.8 percent.

Fresh regional elections will be triggered if a new leader is not elected by May 22.

In a letter sent from prison, former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras said that immediately forming a government was "a necessity" so that Catalonia could regain its political autonomy.
Separatists in Catalonia launch a general strike in protest of the trial of Catalonia independence leaders, with major participation of the educational community. Demonstrators block major roads, highways, train tracks and the entrance to the port of Tarragona.