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WORLD NEWS Friday 6 OctOber 2017
Spain’s top court halts Catalan secession parliament meeting

By ARITZ PARRA lence. Puigdemont said
CIARAN GILES the results of the vote vali-
Associated Press dated the push to secede.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) On Wednesday, Puigde-
— Spain’s Constitutional mont toned down his de-
Court on Thursday ordered fiant stance by calling for
Catalonia’s parliament to mediation in the conflict,
suspend a planned ses- although he maintained
sion next week during the plan to declare seces-
which separatist lawmak- sion next week.The court
ers wanted to declare in- order came as political
dependence — further fu- uncertainty over Catalo-
eling Spain’s worst political nia’s secession bid started
crisis in decades. spreading to the econ-
Catalan regional authori- omy, with stock markets
ties previously have ig- falling and big Catalan
nored Constitutional Court firms relocating or consid-
orders, so it was not imme- ering a move to elsewhere
diately clear if the session in Spain.Banco Sabadell,
would go ahead and if all one of Catalonia’s largest
parties would attend. banks and Spain’s fifth in
The court said its order Anti-independence demonstrators wave Spanish flags in support of Spain’s security forces in front volume of assets, said in a
could be appealed but of a Guardia Civil barracks in Sant Boi de LLobregat, in the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain, Thursday statement to the Spanish
also warned Catalan par- Oct. 5, 2017. stock regulator on Thurs-
liament speaker Carme (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) day that it was relocating
Forcadell and other mem- regional Catalan govern- first since Sunday, when referendum on indepen- the bank’s base to the
bers of the speakers’ board ment, Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia held a banned dence, amid police vio- eastern city of Alicante. q
that they could face pros- to cancel plans for declar-
ecution for failing to halt ing independence in order
the session. to avoid “greater evils.”
Speaking to reporters, For- In an interview with Spain’s
cadell called the suspen- official EFE news agency,
sion a “violation of free- Rajoy said the solution in
dom of speech.” Catalonia “is the prompt
“I won’t allow censorship return to legality and the
to enter Parliament,” she affirmation, as early as pos-
said without clarifying if the sible, that there will be no
meeting would go ahead unilateral declaration of
or not. independence, because
Earlier, Spain’s Prime Min- that way greater evils will
ister Mariano Rajoy urged be avoided.”
the separatist leader of the Rajoy’s remarks were the
Polish women’s groups decry

police raid on their offices

By VANESSA GERA work, and accused author-
Associated Press ities of trying to intimidate
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — them. Prosecutors denied
Women’s rights groups on the accusation, saying the
Thursday denounced po- timing of the raids a day af-
lice raids on their offices in ter the women’s marches
several Polish cities that re- was purely coincidental.
sulted in the seizing of doc- Some fear the ruling Law
uments and computers, a and Justice party, led by
day after women staged Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is fol-
anti-government marches lowing in the footsteps
to protest the country’s re- of neighboring Hungary,
strictive abortion law. where non-governmental
The raids took place groups have faced harass-
Wednesday in the cities ment under Prime Minister
of Warsaw, Gdansk, Lodz Viktor Orban.
and Zielona Gora. They tar- “This is an abuse of power
geted two organizations, because even if there is
the Women’s Rights Center any suspicion of wrongdo-
and Baba, which help vic- ing, an inquiry could be
tims of domestic violence done in a way that doesn’t
and which also participat- affect the organizations’
ed in this week’s anti-gov- work,” Marta Lempart, the
ernment protests. head of the Polish Women’s
Women’s rights activists Strike, which organized this
said Thursday the loss of week’s street protests, told
files would hamper their The Associated Press.q