100 Arrested in Barcelona After Rioting, Looting and Fires Around Plaza de Catalunya

Police arrested 100 people in Barcelona on Saturday evening after hooded demonstrators who had taken part in an anti-establishment rally looted shops and set fire to street furniture around Plaza de Catalunya, the central square in an area popular with tourists and weekend shoppers.

Catalonia's interior minister, Nuria Parlon, said around 25 percent of those arrested were minors. She said more than 30 fires were set during the disturbances, and 14 stores were vandalised or looted before police brought the square back under control.

How the disturbances unfolded

The first detentions were recorded in a Spanish report at 20:59 UTC on Saturday. Mossos d'Esquadra riot police charged demonstrators who were throwing stones and blunt objects, and police asked the public to stay away from Plaza de Catalunya and the surrounding streets because violent groups were burning containers, vandalising street furniture and throwing stones at officers.

The full scale became clear later in the evening. Figures reported at 22:13 UTC, citing data advanced by the broadcaster Beteve, put the total at 100 detained, 25 of them minors, after serious disturbances, barricades and looting of shops around the square following a gathering called through social media.

A rally called on social media

The demonstrators had been called in social media posts to a movement against the system under the slogan Institut Indignats. Reuters reported that the slogan is a translation of Lycees Indignes, the name used to rally students who have protested in France in recent weeks.

Social media videos showed people trapped inside shops, including the department store El Corte Ingles, after shutters were lowered to prevent looting. Other footage showed hooded demonstrators dressed in black kicking in shop windows and taking goods.

The computer retailer PC Componentes, on Ronda de la Universitat, was looted despite preventive closures. Customers in affected stores waited inside until it was safe to leave, and the Mossos d'Esquadra recommended that people avoid the Plaza de Catalunya area while police remained deployed.

Officials reject any protest motive

Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni said more than 600 young people took part in the disturbances. Collboni and Parlon both said the gathering was not defending any right and was unrelated to the housing access camp that has been installed for weeks in Plaza de Catalunya. They called the night gratuitous violence and vandalism.

Some Spanish outlets framed the gathering around housing costs. The Catalan interior minister and the mayor explicitly disputed that framing, so this report records their position rather than treating a housing motive as established.

Collboni said the acts of vandalism "will not go unpunished," a warning that Reuters reported included legal consequences for the guardians of any minors involved.