OC spray, made from natural pepper extract, is a substance that expels a gaseous cloud that immediately irritates the eyes and throat of those exposed. of a police tool that the Mossos d'Esquadra are using more and moreFor example, last October during the pro-Palestinian protests held in Barcelona. The Director General of the Catalan Police, Josep Lluís Trapero, defended the use of pepper spray by the deployed officers this Wednesday in the Catalan Parliament, stating that they faced a situation in which "generalized violence" by minority groups "escalated." The events occurred on October 15th during the general strike in support of the Palestinian cause. Specifically, during the demonstration leaving Sants station. Trapero explained that a group sat down on the exit ramp of the station parking lot because a bus carrying the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team to Manresa for a game was scheduled to depart. After the protesters "disobeyed" the officers' orders and the officers were unable to remove them, Trapero asserted that it was the commanding officer present who decided to use pepper spray "in order to clear the ramp."

It was a few minutes before 5:00 PM on October 15th. A general strike had been called in support of the Palestinian cause, which was to be made particularly loud with a demonstration starting from Barcelona's Sants train station. But a group of people didn't head to the exact starting point of the protest. Instead, they sat down on the exit ramp of the station's parking lot because a bus carrying the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team to Manresa for a game was scheduled to depart. Their aim was to disrupt the game due to the presence of Israeli clubs. Officers from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) surrounded this group of protesters and sprayed them with OC spray—commonly known as pepper spray—in a police action that was recorded and broadcast, and which went viral in the following hours. This Tuesday, six people announced they have filed a lawsuit against this police action.

During the protests for Palestine this October, the use of pepper spray by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) caused a stir. OC spray is a tool that the police force had previously used only on rare occasions.And during those days it was used in various situations. It was even used against protesters sitting on the ground near Barcelona's Sants station, just minutes after the protest began. For all these reasons, ERC, Comuns, and the CUP demanded that the Catalan government make the usage protocol public and requested the appearance of the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, before the Catalan Parliament. Now, this newspaper has been able to quantify the increase in its use that was noted at the time. According to data provided by the Ministry of the Interior through a transparency request, the Catalan police have used pepper spray seven times so far in 2025, six of them in October. Before that, since its first use in 2019, and despite having regulations in place since 2013, it had only been used in three circumstances. Of the seven uses this year, six were concentrated in operations for the pro-Palestinian demonstrations this October. The Catalan Police Directorate General claims to have used OC spray twice on Friday, October 3, the second day of protests against Israel's raid on the Gaza flotilla in international waters, and once on October 4, the day of that week's main demonstration. A few days later, during the general strike for Palestine, the Mossos d'Esquadra riot police sprayed protesters with the product on three separate occasions, according to police records. One of these incidents occurred during a sit-in at Sants station, where protesters were attempting to prevent the bus carrying the Israeli basketball team Hapoel Jerusalem from leaving for Manresa for a game.