https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/military-police-deployed-500...

Central Barcelona has reportedly been paralyzed as mass protests which international reports estimate to number over a half-million people are driven by outrage at harsh prison sentences for pro-independence leaders handed down by the top Spanish court. 

Protest leaders are vowing "the streets will be ours" as they push for Catalan independence, and as riot police have begun clashing with stone-throwing activists, who are also in some places of the city setting makeshift roadblocks ablaze. 

Pro-Catalan independence protesters near the police headquarters in Barcelona on Friday, via the AFP.

With night fall, reporters on the ground are describing what's beginning to resemble a war zone, with increasing violence against police, as also both far-left and far-right agitators are said to be infiltrating the crowd and engaged in increasing violence and vandalism. 

The turmoil began Monday after Spain’s Supreme Court handed out extreme prison sentences to nine politicians who spearheaded the referendum on Catalonia’s independence in 2017.

Protesters blocked at least 20 major roadways Friday, via Sky News.



They were given a whopping 13 years behind bars for what amounts to pro-independence activism, but which Madrid sees as an "illegal" secession attempt which undermined the state. 

Though protests started out relatively minor by some student groups, a mass body of people began marching from various parts of Catalonia earlier in the week, and then began inundating Barcelona starting at about noon on Friday, resulting in absolute gridlock.