Catalan nationalism

The Catalan regional authorities launched a campaign to support women’s right to bare their breasts

He was echoed by Stjepan Mesic, the last president of federal Yugoslavia and president of Croatia from 2000 to 2010, who wrote to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to express concern over the "draconian" sentences.

Barely a quarter of Catalans want to continue with a plan to claim independence from Spain in the wake of Dec. 21 regional elections, according to a poll published in El Pais newspaper on Nov. 27.

The crisis in Spain dramatically deepened and extended across the Continent after eight Catalan ministers were jailed by a court in Madrid and a European arrest warrant was issued to extradite the region’s disputed president Carles Puigdemont from Belgium on charges of rebellion and sedition.

 Catalan independence parties are seen as losing their parliamentary majority in an election, according to a poll published on Sunday, though the wafer-thin margin between the two sides predicts a hard-fought campaign to December's ballot, Reuters reports.

The ongoing political conflict between the government of Spain and the Generalitat of Catalonia over the issue of Catalan independence has once again proved that referendum could be a dangerous weapon in a democratic structure.

The Spanish government is to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy and impose direct rule after the region’s president refused to abandon the push for independence that has pitched Spain into its worst political crisis for 40 years.

Two hundred thousand people, some of them with candles in hand, demonstrated on Tuesday evening in Barcelona. The protest is against Monday's arrest of two activists in the struggle for independence of Catalonia, AFP reports. The data on the number people participating in the event is from the municipal police.

Municipalities in more than 100 settlements in the Spanish Autonomous area of Catalonia have decided today to be a working day, even though the national holiday of Spain is celebrated, reported the daily newspaper "Periodio", the day is not working for the whole country. However, Girona, Badalona, Berga ignored the holiday Nova TV reported.

Catalans have expressed mixed feelings over the regional leadership's failure to steam ahead and unilaterally split from Madrid, after its declaration of independence was immediately placed on hold pending talks with the central government.