BARCELONA: Thousands of Catalans rallied in a rainstorm Tuesday as their leaders battled to defend their bid for a referendum on independence from Spain after a court suspended it.

Angry separatists in the northeastern region demonstrated after a Madrid court halted the plan to hold the vote on Nov 9, which the national government brands unconstitutional.

The speaker of the regional parliament, Nuria de Gispert, said the assembly would demand that the Constitutional Court “immediately lift” its suspension of the referendum.

Waving Catalan independence flags of red and yellow stripes overlaid with a white star on a blue background, demonstrators rallied under umbrellas in Barcelona on Tuesday evening, yelling “We will vote”.

Catalonia’s president Artur Mas on Saturday signed a decree calling the referendum. That was automatically suspended under Spain’s constitution when the court accepted the appeal on Monday, pending its final ruling.—AFP

The regional government on Tuesday cautiously halted its publicity campaign for the vote so as not to oblige regional civil servants to break the court’s ruling, but Catalan separatists vowed to push ahead regardless.

“Not rain nor snow nor any court will stop us,” said Carme Forcadell, leader of the Catalan National Assembly, a powerful civil campaign group for independence, at the Barcelona rally.

“On Nov 9 we will vote and we will win. “Supporters of independence for the rich Spanish region called for demonstrations across Catalonia on Tuesday and Spanish media broadcast images of crowds in several other Catalan towns.

The Catalan government’s spokesman Francesc Homs earlier told a news conference: “Nothing has ended and the government is determined to move forward. We can’t give the signal that we have given up.”

Published in Dawn, October 1st , 2014