Police officers of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Catalan police, check the I.D. of a person at a school listed to be a polling station by the Catalan government at the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain,... (Associated Press) 
 
 BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish riot police smashed their way into polling stations to try to halt a disputed independence referendum in Catalonia on Sunday and fired rubber bullets at protesters outside a Barcelona polling station. Several people were injured. 
 
 The officers fired the rubber bullets while trying to clear protesters who were trying to prevent National Police cars from leaving after police confiscated ballot boxes from the voting center. The Spanish government has ordered police to stop the voting process, saying it's illegal. 
 
 Catalan officials said 38 people were treated for mostly minor injuries. An AP photographer saw several people who had been injured during the scuffles outside Barcelona's Rius i Taule school, where some voters had cast ballots before police arrived 
 
 Catalan President Carles Puigdemont condemned the crackdown. 
 
 "Police brutality will shame forever the Spanish state," he said as crowds cheered. 
 
 Tension has been on the rise since the vote was called in early September, crystalizing years of defiance by separatists in the affluent region, which contributes mightily to Spain's economy. As one of Spain's 17 autonomous regions, Catalonia enjoys ample rights but key areas such as infrastructure and taxes are in the hands of Madrid. Separatist Catalans have long complained of contributing too much to the state while not getting enough in return. 
 
 Enric Millo, the Spanish government's representative in the region, said police and National Guard forces acted "professionally" to enforce court orders. He said any attempt to claim the referendum as valid is doomed. 
 
 "Today's events in Catalonia can never be portrayed as a referendum or anything similar," he said. 
 
 Manuel Condeminas, a 48-year-old IT manager who tried to block police from driving away with the ballot boxes, said agents had kicked them before using their batons and firing the projectiles, which were ball-shaped. 
 
 Elsewhere, Civil Guard officers, wearing helmets and carrying shields, used a hammer to break the glass of the front door and a lock cutter to break into the Sant Julia de Ramis sports center near the city of Girona. At least one woman was injured outside the building and wheeled away on a stretcher by paramedics. 
 
 Clashes broke out less than an hour after polls opened, and not long before Catalonia regional president Carles Puigdemont was expected to turn up to vote at the sports center. Polling station workers inside the building reacted peacefully and broke out into songs and chants challenging the officers' presence. 
 
 Puigdemont was forced to vote in Cornella de Terri, near the northern city of Girona, his spokesman Joan Maria Pique told The Associated Press. 
 
 The Spanish government and its security forces are trying to prevent voting in the independence referendum, which is backed by Catalan regional authorities. Spanish officials had said force wouldn't be used, but that voting wouldn't be allowed. 
 
 Spain's Constitutional Court has suspended the vote. Regional separatist leaders pledged to hold it anyway, promising to declare independence if the "yes" side wins, and have called on 5.3 million eligible voters to cast ballots. 
 
 Police had sealed off many voting centers in the hours before the vote to prevent their use. Others were filled with activists determined to hold their ground. 
 
 Spanish riot police forcefully removed a few hundred would-be voters from a polling station at a school in Barcelona. 
 
 Daniel Riano was inside when the police pushed aside a large group gathered outside busted in the Estela school's front door. 
 
 The 54-year-old Riano said that "we were waiting inside to vote when the National Police used force to enter, they used a mace to break in the glass door and they took everything." 
 
 He said that "one policeman put me in a headlock to drag me out, while I was holding my wife's hand. It was incredible. They didn't give any warning." 
 
 National Police and Civil Guard officers also showed up in other polling centers where Catalan officials were expected. 
 
 Catalans braved rain and defied police orders to abandon designated voting stations. 
 
 Joaquim Bosch, a 73-year-old retiree at Princep de Viana high school, where a crowd of 20 people was growing Sunday morning, said he was uneasy about a possible police response to the crowds. 
 
 "I have come to vote to defend the rights of my country, which is Catalonia," Bosch said. "I vote because of the mistreatment of Catalonia by Spain for many years." 
 
 Reporters with The Associated Press saw ballot boxes wrapped in plastic bags being carried into some of the polling stations in Barcelona occupied by parents, children and activists before some polling stations could open at 9 a.m. (0700 GMT) as scheduled. 
 
 The plastic ballot boxes, bearing the seal of the Catalan regional government, were placed on tables, prompting the cheering of hopeful voters who had gathered in schools before dawn. 
 
 In an effort to overcome myriad obstacles, Catalan officials announced that voters would be allowed to cast ballots in any location and could use ballots printed at home, rather than in designated polling stations as previously announced. 
 
 Regional government spokesman Jordi Turull also said that a group of "academics and professionals" would serve as election observers. The official electoral board appointed by the regional parliament was disbanded last week to avoid hefty fines by Spain's Constitutional Court. 
 
 "We are under conditions to be able to celebrate a self-determination referendum with guarantees," Turull said in a press conference. "Our goal is that all Catalans can vote." 
 
 Courts and police have been cracking down for days to halt the vote, confiscating 10 million paper ballots and arresting key officials involved in the preparations. On Saturday, Civil Guard agents dismantled the technology to connect voting stations, count the votes and vote online, leading the Spanish government to announce that holding the referendum would be "impossible." 
 
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 Associated Press writer Alex Oller contributed to this report from Barcelona, and Gregory Katz and Frank Griffiths contributed from London. 
 
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 Follow complete AP coverage of the Catalonia referendum here . 
 
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 This story has been corrected to show that the spelling of the IT manager's surname is Condeminas, not Conedeminas. ||||| Carles Puigdemont says EU ‘cannot look the other way’ after almost 900 were injured in referendum crackdown 
 
 The Catalan president has called for international help in tackling its independence dispute with Spain, saying Europe cannot continue to ignore the issue after almost 900 people were injured during the police crackdown on the referendum. 
 
 
 
 “The European commission must encourage international mediation,” Carles Puigdemont said on Monday. “It cannot look the other way any longer.” 
 
 After the Catalan referendum: what happens next? Read more 
 
 At least 893 people and 33 police officers were reported to have been hurt on Sunday after riot police stormed polling stations, dragging out voters and firing rubber bullets into crowds. 
 
 Puigdemont’s government has claimed that 90% of those who took part voted for independence, but the Catalan leader’s call for mediation could suggest a shift in strategy as he had previously said that independence would be declared within 48 hours of a victory for the yes campaign. 
 
 Puigdemont said on Sunday night that the referendum results would be put before the regional parliament “where the sovereignty of our people lies, so that it can act in accordance with the law of the referendum”. 
 
 
 
 The European commission has so far declined to intervene in what it has described as an internal Spanish matter and has urged both sides to “move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue”. 
 
 
 
 In a statement, it said: “Violence can never be an instrument in politics. We trust the leadership of prime minister Mariano Rajoy to manage this difficult process in full respect of the Spanish constitution and of the fundamental rights of citizens enshrined therein.” 
 
 A statement from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he had backed the “constitutional unity of Spain” in a telephone call with Rajoy. 
 
 Much of Catalonia was brought to a standstill for 10 minutes at midday on Monday in protest at the police violence. 
 
 Squares were occupied and roads blocked as crowds chanted “Independence!”. The Barcelona metro stopped briefly and the Plaça Sant Jaume, the seat of the Barcelona city council and the Catalan government, was packed with protesters. 
 
 Jordi Cuixart, the leader of the pro-independence group Òmnium Cultural, told the crowd that a general strike called for Tuesday was “the best response the Catalan people can make to the attacks on us yesterday and in recent weeks”. 
 
 FC Barcelona said it would take part in the strike, adding that it would close its headquarters and that none of its professional or youth teams would train. 
 
 The police operation was criticised by the UN high commissioner for human rights, who said he had been “very disturbed” by the violence in Catalonia. 
 
 “With hundreds of people reported injured, I urge the Spanish authorities to ensure thorough, independent and impartial investigations into all acts of violence,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said. “Police responses must at all times be proportionate and necessary.” 
 
 Hussein asked Spain to immediately accept requests for UN human rights monitors to visit the country. 
 
 Play Video 0:48 Spanish PM open to talks with Catalan separatists – video 
 
 Puigdemont urged the Spanish government to withdraw the national police and Guardia Civil officers who had been deployed to prevent the referendum. He also announced that his government would create a commission to examine human rights violations. 
 
 Profile Who is Carles Puigdemont? Show Hide In a little over a decade, Carles Puigdemont has gone from obscurity to becoming the Spanish government’s bête noire and the pubic face of the Catalan independence movement. 
 
 A staunch and long-standing independence campaigner who has been the regional president of Catalonia since January 2016, Puigdemont was born to a family of bakers in the Catalan province of Girona in 1962. He studied Catalan philology at university before becoming a journalist on the Girona-based daily El Punt and helping to launch Catalonia Today, an English-language paper. He was elected in 2006 to the Catalan parliament as an MP for the Convergence and Union party representing the Girona region and five years later became the mayor of Girona. Puigdemont found himself thrust into the Catalan presidency in January 2016 after his predecessor, Artur Mas, stepped aside to facilitate the formation of a pro-independence coalition government. 
 
 A spokesman for the Catalan government said 2.26 million Catalans – 43% of the region’s 5.3 million eligible voters – had taken part in the referendum, which was staged in defiance of the Spanish government, the country’s constitutional court and the Catalan high court. He said 90% had opted for independence, with nearly 8% of voters against; the rest of the ballots were blank or void. 
 
 The Catalan government had not set a minimum threshold for turnout in the election, arguing the vote would be binding regardless of the level of participation. 
 
 
 
 In a symbolic referendum held in Catalonia three years ago, 80% of voters backed independence, with 2.3 million of the region’s 5.4 million eligible voters taking part. 
 
 The Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal said on Monday he felt like crying after the vote. Nadal, a national hero who condemned the referendum before it was held, told a press conference in Beijing before the start of the Chinese Open: “I want to cry when I see a country where we have known how to co-exist and be a good example to the rest of the world get to a situation like this. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rafael Nadal at a press conference in Beijing. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images 
 
 Although millions of Catalans managed to cast their ballots on Sunday, others were forcibly stopped from voting as schools housing ballot boxes were raided by police acting on the orders of the Catalan high court. The Spanish government defended its response and said the police had been acting to defend the constitution and Spanish democracy. 
 
 
 
 Rajoy thanked the police for acting with “firmness and serenity” as they attempted to halt the poll. “Today there has not been a self-determination referendum in Catalonia,” he said on Sunday night. “The rule of law remains in force with all its strength. We are the government of Spain and I am the head of the government of Spain and I accepted my responsibility.” 
 
 The prime minister met the leaders of Spanish opposition parties on Monday afternoon to discuss the worst territorial crisis the country has faced since its return to democracy four decades ago. 
 
 Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Spanish socialist party, said he had told Rajoy of his disapproval over the police operation and asked him to work with other parties to find a political solution to the Catalan question and to open urgent negotiations with Puigdemont. 
 
 The Scottish government has meanwhile urged Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, to ask the Spanish government to “enter immediately into a genuine dialogue with the Catalans” and avoid further violence repression of pro-independence voters in Catalonia. 
 
 Fiona Hyslop, Scotland’s external affairs secretary, wrote to Johnson on Monday urging him to “send a strong message to Spain to desist from using force against its own citizens” by unequivocally condemning the violence seen on Sunday. 
 
 Despite campaigning for a fresh Scottish independence vote, SNP ministers in Edinburgh have stopped short of backing Catalan independence for diplomatic reasons, in part to avoid setting a precedent where other countries might interfere in a further Scottish referendum. 
 
 Additional reporting by Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Severin Carrell in Edinburgh ||||| What next for Catalonia after 'independence vote' 9:02 AM ET Mon, 2 Oct 2017 | 00:54 
 
 Relations between Catalonia's separatist government and Madrid have hit their lowest point in years following an outlawed referendum vote Sunday, deepening a constitutional crisis in Spain. 
 
 Political analysts and economists are now questioning what could happen next following the vote in Catalonia, which saw Spanish riot police clash with pro-independence voters, leaving hundreds injured. 
 
 Catalan regional government spokesman Jordi Turull told reporters early Monday that 2.26 million people had cast their votes on Sunday with 90 percent of those voting in favor of Catalonia, a wealthy region in north-east Spain, to gain independence. Voter turnout was low, however, at around 42 percent. 
 
 The vote had been outlawed by the Spanish government and the Constitutional Court but went ahead anyway despite chaotic and violent scenes of riot police trying to prevent voting from taking place, with reports of rubber bullets being used against crowds and footage showing the police wielding batons against voters. Some Catalans responded by barricading polling stations to prevent the police seizing ballot boxes. 
 
 On Monday, the European Commission called for all parties to "now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue." In a statement on its website, the Commission added that: "Violence can never be an instrument in politics" but also warned that if Catalonia left Spain, "it would find itself outside of the European Union." 
 
 Around midday on Monday, the head of the Catalan government Carles Puigdemont said legal action would be brought against those "responsible for violence" during the referendum and he sought the removal of all Spanish police from Catalonia, according to Reuters. 
 
 Throwing down the gauntlet to his counterparts in Madrid, he said the referendum result was "binding". He added that he had had no contact with Spain's central government since the vote and asked for international mediation in the region. 
 
 A general strike has been called by pro-separatists and unions in Catalonia for Tuesday in protest at what they see as a violation of their rights following the police crackdown. 
 
 If Catalonia was to go further and declare itself independent that could push the Spanish government to try to seize control of the Catalan government, according to one political analyst. 
 
 "Catalan First Minister Carles Puigdemont has suggested that the regional parliament will declare the independence of Catalonia this week," Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence said in a note Monday. 
 
 "This will probably lead Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to activate article 155 of the constitution to temporarily take control of the Catalan government. Aside from the risks associated with sustained protests in the region, the biggest impact of the Catalan issue is still its potential spill over into national politics," he said.
– Spain erupted into chaos on Sunday as Catalonia held a referendum on independence, with police firing rubber bullets at protesters and smashing into polling stations in an effort to halt the vote, reports the AP. The officers fired the rubber bullets while trying to clear protesters who were trying to prevent National Police cars from leaving after police confiscated ballot boxes. The Spanish government has ordered police to stop the voting process, saying it's illegal. Catalan officials said more than 300 people were injured, some seriously. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont condemned the crackdown. "Police brutality will shame forever the Spanish state," he said as crowds cheered. Tension has been on the rise since the vote was called in early September, crystalizing years of defiance by separatists in the affluent region, which contributes mightily to Spain's economy. Enric Millo, the Spanish government's rep in the region, said police and National Guard forces acted "professionally" to enforce court orders to suspend the vote. He dismissed the vote's validity, saying, "today's events in Catalonia can never be portrayed as a referendum or anything similar." Clashes broke out less than an hour after polls opened. Polling station workers reacted peacefully and broke out into songs and chants challenging the officers' presence. Spanish officials had said force wouldn't be used, but that voting wouldn't be allowed. Regional separatist leaders pledged to hold it anyway, promising to declare independence if the "yes" side wins, and called on 5.3 million eligible voters to cast ballots.