The region’s president says Catalonia has “won the right to become an independent state”, but Madrid insists Spain will not split.
Preliminary results show that 90% of those who voted in Catalonia’s independence referendum backed leaving Spain, Catalan officials say.
Catalonia’s government said that of the 2.2m voters who were able to cast ballots in the banned referendum, two million voted for independence.
Regional president Carles Puigdemont said Catalonia had “won the right to become an independent state”, adding he would keep to his vow to declare independence unilaterally if separatists win more than 50% of the vote.
However, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy insisted that no independence referendum had occurred and that those who took part had been “fooled” into participating in a vote declared illegal by the country’s constitutional court.
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Image:Voting in the banned referendum on Catalonian independence from Spain has been disrupted by riot police
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Image:Officers descended on polling stations as voting started
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Image:A demonstrator blocks a riot police van near a polling station. Click through for more pictures
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Image:A woman celebrates outside a polling station after casting her vote in Barcelona
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Image:A child sits on the shoulders of a person as police move in on the crowds
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Image:Police move in on the crowds
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Image:Voting in the banned referendum on Catalonian independence from Spain has been disrupted by riot police
There were violent clashes as security forces dispatched by Madrid blocked polling stations and forcibly seized ballot boxes in an attempt to disrupt the vote.
Catalan officials claimed 844 people were injured, while Sky’s Europe Correspondent Mark Stone said he had seen voters pulled out of polling stations by their hair and stamped on by police.
Rubber bullets – illegal in Catalonia – were also used to disperse crowds, he added.
Challenged by Stone about the tactics used, Spain’s foreign minister Alfonso Dastis said: “I don’t agree with you that this is an extraordinary level of violence.
“You may think people were peacefully exercising their right to vote but the problem is this so-called referendum had been held to be illegal by the constitutional court.”
During the clashes, riot police stormed a polling station near Girona, to the north of Barcelona, using a hammer to smash through a glass door of a school.
Mr Puigdemont had been due to appear at the polling station and was forced to cast his ballot in nearby Cornella del Terri instead.
In a televised address, Mr Rajoy thanked police for their clampdown on the vote and said they had acted with “firmness and serenity”.
Accusing separatists of attempting to “blackmail” Spain, the PM offered all-party talks on the region’s future.
Meanwhile, unions and workers’ associations have called for a general strike to be held across the region on Tuesday, urging Catalans to protest against a “grave violation of rights and freedoms”.
Clashes between voters and police were condemned by UK politicians, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who tweeted: “I urge @theresa_may to appeal directly to Rajoy to end police violence in Catalonia & find political solution to this constitutional crisis.”
