MADRID, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Tension continued to rise in the Catalan region of Spain on Wednesday following a series of police operations directed against the organization of the Catalan Independence referendum.
The referendum, scheduled for Oct. 1, and which the Spanish Constitutional Court has declared to be illegal.
14 government officials, the majority of whom are from the team of Catalan deputy leader Oriol Junqueras, were arrested by Civil Guard, who also searched 22 different buildings.
Among those arrested in the operation that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said was "carried out on the decision of a judge in order to ensure the law was complied with" is Catalan Secretary for the Economy, Josep Maria Jove, who is Junqueras' assistant.
Jove was detained along with Catalan Treasury Secretary Josep Lluis Soldado and Xavier Puig Farre from the office of social affairs. They will be questioned over the misuse of public funds to organize the referendum.
News of the arrests sparked protests in Barcelona, with thousands of people congregating outside the Department of the Economy building in the center of Barcelona, where the wheels of some Civil Guard cars were punctured, despite appeals from Ezquerra Republicana deputy Joan Tarda for protestors to behave in a "democratic" manner.
Wednesday also saw the Spanish central government take over control of "non-vital payments" made by the Catalan regional authority, meaning that among other things, Madrid will now pay the wages of Catalan civil servants.
The Spanish Treasury says the move is in order to stop Catalan authorities illegally spending money on organizing the referendum.
Meanwhile, Civil Guard also on the day seized around 9 million ballot papers apparently scheduled to be used in the referendum from a warehouse on an industrial estate in Bigues I Riells, close to Barcelona, while left wing Catalan nationalist party CUP tweeted that their headquarters were surrounded by National Police.
Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont denounced the actions as the Spanish government "suspending the self-government" of the Catalan region and that Madrid has "crossed the red line that separates them from repression."
Football Club Barcelona also issued a communique in which the institution said that "the club would remain faithful "to its historic commitment to the defense of the nation, to democracy, to freedom of speech, and to self-determination, (and) condemns any act that may impede the free exercise of these rights."
The club "will continue to support the will of the majority of Catalan people, and will do so in a civil, peaceful, and exemplary way," reads the communique.
