MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Over 100 injured in Barcelona as police takes protestors with rubber bullets and tear gas

The M15 ‘angry ones’ movement is asking for jobs and an end to corruption

Over 100 people were injured on Friday when police forcibly evicted protesters who have been camped out for two weeks in the main square of Barcelona as part of a nationwide mobilization against youth unemployment, austerity, corruption and the country’s political class

Apparently the majority suffered injuries when the police appealed to rubber bullets and tear gas. Police reported 37 of its officers had been injured.

The confrontation began when municipal cleaners entered Catalonia Plaza with instructions to remove objects that might be used as weapons in possible disturbances following Saturday’s UEFA Champions League soccer final in London pitting FC Barcelona against Manchester United.

Protesters sat in the middle of the road impeding access to the municipal trucks that were meant to carry away their belongings.

At that point, police charged the protesters and roughly 1,000 sympathizers flocked to the plaza in support of the campers.

With tear gas and rubber bullets, cops cleared a path for the cleaners, who hauled away more than a dozen carts filled with tents, mattresses, laptop computers and bottled gas used to fuel generators, among other items.

Police then withdrew and the protesters returned to begin rebuilding the encampment.

Elsewhere, two protesters were arrested for resisting a similar clean-up effort on the main square in the city of Lerida.

In Madrid, site of the largest sit in at the emblematic Puerta del Sol, protestors on hearing news from Barcelona responded laying flowers along the plaza.

The opposition-controlled regional government of Madrid has formally asked the Spanish Interior Ministry to evict the protesters from Puerta del Sol square.

The municipal administration joined in the request, citing concerns about “public health,” while merchants in the Puerta del Sol complained that their business has fallen off by as much as 80% because of the young and unemployed protestors tents and precarious living conditions.

The May 15th Movement, so named because the first protests took place on that date, is demanding “real democracy now” and new economic policies against the backdrop of more-than-21% unemployment.

Though the initial sit-ins were carried out by young people struggling with an under-25 jobless rate almost 50%, the movement of the “indignados” (angry ones) has grown to encompass people of all ages and walks of life.

Demonstrators reject current austerity policies, allegedly extended corruption in the political system, lack of jobs and express disgust with both the ruling Socialists and the main opposition, the conservative Popular Party, which made big gains in last Sunday’s regional and municipal elections.

Protesters say they want a more representative electoral system and mechanisms for genuine citizen participation in government.