The Mossos attribute the riots to "radical anti-system movements" and disassociate them from Blocus

BarcelonaThe night of riots in Barcelona, following the general strike mobilization, ended yesterday with 52 people arrested, six of whom are minors. This was explained by the chief commissioner of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Sílvia Catà, in a joint press conference with the Minister of Interior, Núria Parlon, the day after the general strike.

Parlon described the riots in the city center as "totally unacceptable" after a day of mobilization that she said was a "success." The minister was very firm with the young people who carried out the violent acts and with their "aggressive" and "sinister" attitude, according to her. Parlon referred to them as a "bunch of losers" and said that their actions "have no place" in society. Nevertheless, she guaranteed that "the full weight of the law" will fall upon them.

The profile of those arrested

At the same time, the Minister of the Interior has assured that the detainees have "no connection whatsoever" with Blocus, the movement that was behind the looting in the center of Barcelona on October 24th. The average age of those arrested is 24, and the arrests were made for injuries, assault on authority, public disorder, and robbery with force, as explained by the Chief Commissioner of the police force, Sílvia Catà, who attributed the acts to people from "radical anti-system movements" who wanted to "generate chaos and fear" by taking advantage of the general strike mobilization.

Catà also put the number of injured officers at 36, and specified that seven of the agents are on medical leave. In fact, the commissioner explained that one of the practices some of the detainees carried out was shooting pyrotechnics from PVC pipes directly at the police line, "horizontally." An attack she described as new and which is very different from the fireworks launched into the air usually seen in these protests. They also seized, she says, several Molotov cocktails.

Condemn violence

For her part, Parlon said she "missed" the condemnation of last night's riots by the "trade union organizations" and, specifically, addressed the Tenants' Union (Sindicat de Llogateres). She directly asked them to denounce the "totally reprehensible attitudes" that were experienced on the streets of Barcelona: "If we do not condemn violence and associate it with the fact that it is the fruit of rage, we will have many more problems," she said. "Normalizing attacking the police line with pyrotechnics [...] does a disservice to the mobilization of which the Tenants' Union is a promoter," she added, qualifying last night's riots as a "stain on the mobilizations" of the entire day.