Prosecution orders 712 mayors to testify over Catalunya referendum

José Manuel Maza, the State prosecutor, says if any of these mayors – who are based in all four of the region's provinces of Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona – do not testify in court, he will order their arrest 'as soon as possible', probably before the voting takes place.

Maza says a letter signed by regional president Carles Puigdemont and deputy president Oriol Junqueras sent to all town councils in Catalunya have ordered them to provide venues for ballot boxes.

According to the prosecutor, if they did so, they would be 'committing a criminal offence'.

Among the 712 are the mayors of Manresa, Vic, Igualada, Vilafranca, Vilanova, Tortosa, Sitges, Reus, Cambrils, Amposta, Girona, Figueres, Olot, Balaguer, Les Borges Blanques, La Pobla de Segur, Solsona and Tàrrega.

Meanwhile, the government has blocked the referendum website created by the regional government – but Puigdemont has simply produced another one, which has gone live.

And spokespersons for 'minority' parties in Catalunya – PDeCat and ERC – plus Compromís in Valencia, the PNV and EH Bildu in the Basque Country, and Unidos Podemos at national level have called for Maza to appear in Parliament and explain his decision.

Their open letter points out that he is taking legal action and, effectively, pressing charges against, 75% of mayors in Catalunya – for the 'serious crime' of 'allowing their residents a vote'.

They call it 'yet another show of powerlessness and incompetence' on the part of the national government vis à vis Catalunya.

Mayor of Tarragona Ferràn Bel recalls that many of these mayors are also MPs and therefore enjoy a certain level of diplomatic immunity, such as being exempt from testifying without a formal summons and having to go straight to the Supreme Court in the event of any charges, leapfrogging lower tribunals.

All Maza is doing, the letter says, is 'creating a media circus'.

The mayors facing charges will stage a protest on Saturday in Barcelona's Plaça de Sant Jaume.

Chairwoman of the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), Neus Lloveras, says Maza's action is 'unprecedented in a European country', that those mayors who support the referendum will go ahead with it despite the Constitutional Court's having ordered its suspension, and that if any of them have to testify before a judge they will do so 'because they have nothing to hide'.