Spanish armed police converged on polling stations in Catalonia early Sunday as defiant voters attempted to take part in a banned referendum on independence from Madrid.
In the region of Girona, officers scuffled with angry voters before smashing their way into a school being used as a polling station and seized ballot boxes as voting began.
There were also reports of armed police clashing with voters outside polling centers in Barcelona, according to Reuters. Crowds who turned out early to vote were chanting “we are the people of peace,” it reported.
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Spain’s interior ministry posted a picture on Twitter of what it said were the first ballot boxes seized by police, It also also posted video of riot police carrying the boxes through crowds.
“The police, despite harassment, remove ballot boxes from the illegal referendum at the Jaume Balmes institute in Barcelona,” the ministry said in a caption.
Related: Catalan Independence Referendum: What’s Behind Divisive Spanish Vote?
The ballot has no legal status, as it has been blocked by Spain’s Constitutional Court and Madrid for being at odds with the 1978 constitution, but tens of thousands of voters were still expected to take part.
Supporters of Sunday’s vote spent the night in polling booths in a bid to keep them open.
The region in northeastern Spain has a population of 7.5 million and is one of the country’s powerhouses, accounting for around a fifth of Spain’s economy.
It has a distinct language and culture, which were suppressed under Franco, a conservative monarchist whose regime dominated Spain for four decades.