Catalonia's separatists claim victory after violent day.
The polling station in the Maragall Secondary School Institute. More than 2.2 million people voted, according to the Catalan government. (Photo: Helena Spongenberg)
Catalan separatist leaders will press ahead with the region's independence in the wake of a referendum on Sunday (1 October), which the Spanish government said "did not happen".
"With this day of hope and suffering, the citizens of Catalonia have won the right to an independent state in the form a republic," Carles Puigdemont, the president of the Catalan government, said at the end of a day marked by Spanish police violence inside and outside polling stations.
The crowd cheered and clapped when people came out after having cast their vote. (Photo: Helena Spongenberg)
A meeting of the Catalan government was called on Monday morning, and the regional parliament could meet on Monday or Tuesday to declare Catalonia's independence.
On Monday morning, the region's authorities said that more than 2.2 million people voted - a turnout of 42.3 percent - and that the Yes to independence won with more than 90 percent.
But the vote, which had been declared illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal, was held with no electoral roll and no independent electoral commission.
"There was no referendum today," Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy said in a TV address.
He called on Catalan separatists to "give up on taking new steps that lead nowhere".
He said that "the vast majority of the people of Catalonia refused to participate in the secessionists' challenge" and that "the constitution has prevailed".
"We have done what we had to do," he said, calling the referendum a "premeditated and conscious attack" against Spain.
"We have fulfilled our obligation to defend the rule of law. We have acted within the law, and only within the law," he said.
Over the past few days, the Guardia Civil, Spain's police, seized ballots and removed people from polling stations by force. Rubber bullets were also fired.
Catalan authorities said that more than 800 people were injured.
At the Maragall Secondary School Institute, in the Eixample neighbourhood in central Barcelona, people had started to arrive at five in the morning to help prevent the police from closing the polling station and confiscating the ballot boxes.
"We will vote! We will vote!" people shouted when the school opened its doors at nine.
The crowd cheered and clapped when people came out after having cast their vote.
Sadness and happiness
David Vidal had tears in his eyes and a smile on his face while embracing his wife and son as they came walking out of the polling station.
"We queued for a long time but finally we made it!" Vidal told EUobserver.
"I'm not sure how to explain it: I feel a lot of happiness, but also a lot of sadness at what has happened with the people that have been hurt."
Unlike some other polling stations in Barcelona and across Catalonia, the Maragall Institute only had two Catalan police officers standing a bit further away from the crowd and guiding traffic away.
But there were also fears that the Guard Civil would arrive in their anti-riot gear.
At one point in the morning, people thought they were coming. Elderly and families with children were hurried away while the rest of the people huddled close together towards the door of the institute.
