西班牙警方为挫败公投搜查下落不明的投票箱【路透社】 [英国媒体]

Police in Catalonia hunt for hidden ballot boxes in bid to foil referendum

【路透社】西班牙加泰罗尼亚警方为挫败公投搜查下落不明的投票箱



MADRID (Reuters) - Armed police in Spain have raided several print works and newspaper offices in Catalonia in recent days in a hunt for voting papers, ballot boxes and leaflets to be used in an Oct. 1 independence referendum which Madrid vehemently opposes.

最近，西班牙的武装警察突袭了在加泰罗尼亚的几家印刷厂和报社，搜查将在10月1日举行的独立公投中使用的选票、投票箱和传单，马德里（西班牙首都）对此次公投表示强烈的反对。

The searches are part of a concerted effort by the government to prevent the ballot from going ahead, amid fears that a vote to break away could trigger a political crisis even if Spain does not recognize the outcome.

此次搜查目就是为了阻止投票的进行，也是西班牙政府所做的努力中的一部分。有人担心的是，如果西班牙不承认公投结果，那将可能引发一场政治危机。

On Friday, the government passed measures to tighten control over the region’s spending to stop it using state cash to pay for the ballot, and earlier this week Madrid summoned over 700 Catalan mayors for questioning over their support for the vote.

上周五，西班牙政府通过了一些措施，加紧该地区支出控制，为防止其使用国家经费来为选票支付。本周较早时候，马德里召集了700多名加泰罗尼亚的镇长，质疑他们为这次公投提供支持。

“They’ve lost the plot,” said Albert Batet, mayor of the town of Valls and one of those summoned for questioning. “They are persecuting mayors, the press, printers. They are stretching the limits of democracy.”

“他们的阴谋已经失败了，”Albert Batet说道，他是巴尔斯镇的镇长，也是这次被召集的人。“他们正在迫害镇长、报刊、印刷工人。他们正在挑战民主的极限。”

Catalonia’s president Carles Puigdemont, who faces criminal charges for organizing the referendum, says he has over 6,000 ballot boxes ready to deploy next month, but their whereabouts are a secret.

自治区主席卡莱斯·普伊格蒙特面临着因组织全民公投的刑事指控，他说他有超过6000个投票箱，准备在下个月部署，但这些投票箱的下落目前还是个秘密。

“Right now, we have no idea where they are,” said Toni Castejon, spokesman for the Catalan police force union.

“现在的话，我们根本不知道这些投票箱在哪里，”加泰罗尼亚警察部队联盟的发言人Toni Castejon说道。

A spokesman for the Catalan regional government declined to say where the ballot boxes were or how the government was going to get them out of hiding to voting stations on Oct. 1.

加泰罗尼亚地方政府的发言人拒绝透露投票箱的下落，也拒绝说明当地政府是如何在10月1日将投票箱放到投票站去的。

On Friday, police confiscated 100,000 campaign leaflets in a raid in Catalonia, the Interior Ministry said, without saying where. Catalonia’s top court issued a warning on Friday to seven newspapers, many of them online, not to publish campaign notices for the referendum, a court spokesman said on Saturday.

内政部长声称，在周五，警方在加泰罗尼亚的一次突击行动中没收了10万份宣传单，但没有说明是在何处没收的。法院发言人在周六说道，周五，加泰罗尼亚的最高法院向7家报社发出警告，不要发布公投的竞选通知，其中有许多报社是在网上经营的。

At the offices of Catalan newspaper El Vallenc in Valls, some 50 km west of Barcelona, six armed police knocked on the door last Saturday with a warrant to search the offices, said its editor, Francesc Fabregas.

据El Vallenc报的编辑Francesc Fabregas的说法，上个周六，在位于巴塞罗那以西50公里的加泰罗尼亚巴尔斯镇的El Vallenc报社，有6名武装警察到报社敲门，并获得了批准搜查办公室。

The search lasted five-and-a-half hours.

这次搜查持续了5个半小时。

“They didn’t say what they were looking for,” Fabregas told Reuters, adding that he had not printed any voting papers.

Fabregas对路透社说:“他们没有说他们在找什么。”他还说道，他没有印刷任何选票。

The raid led to an impromptu crowd gathering outside the building, with people singing the Catalan anthem and waving slips of paper chanting ‘Where are the ballot papers?'.

这次突袭行动导致了一群闻风而来人群聚集在大楼外，他（她）们唱着加泰罗尼亚的“国歌”，还挥舞着纸片，唱着“选票在哪里啊?”

“When people saw that the streets had been cut off they started coming over with banners, they handed out roses to the police - the street turned into a party,” said Fabregas.

Fabregas说:“当人们看到街道被警察截断时，他们开始拿出横幅，并拿出玫瑰给警察，使这条街都变成了一个聚会。”

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For some supporters of the independence movement, the search for the ballot boxes and voting papers has become a symbol of what they see as state repression.

对于一些支持独立运动的人来说，这场政府对投票箱和选票的搜索已经成为他们眼中国家压迫的象征。

Images of the Catalan police force - the Mossos d‘Esquadra - seizing what for many are symbols of democracy would be highly inflammatory, police say.

警方称，加泰罗尼亚警察部队的象征——骑兵队——多数人赞成就是民主的象征，这也就意味着这场公投有很高的煽动性。

The Mossos report to the Catalan regional government and are highly regarded by Catalans, particularly after their handling of the Islamist militant attacks in the region in August that killed 16.

当地警察给加泰罗尼亚地区政府的报告，受到了加泰罗尼亚人的高度批评，特别是在他们处理8月份伊斯兰激进分子在该地区造成16人死亡的袭击之后。

But Spanish state prosecutors have ordered all police - including the Catalan force - to act.

但西班牙的国家检察官已经命令所有的警察，包括加泰罗尼亚的警察都要采取行动

“What no one wants is the image of the Mossos taking away the ballot boxes,” said Castejon of the police union. “That would lead to a lot of anger and even civil unrest.”

警察联盟的Castejon说:“没人想要这么做，当地警察的形象都被这些投票箱甩得远远的了。”“这将导致众怒。”

Madrid has the constitutional power to take over a regional government or send in the police to force Catalonia to drop the vote, but either step would rock Spain’s decentralized model of government where power is devolved to 17 self-governed regions.

马德里拥有宪法权力，可以接管任一个地区政府，或者派警察去迫使加泰罗尼亚当地政府放弃投票，但这两项举措都将动摇西班牙的分权制度，也就是把权力分到17个自治地区。

Although polls show less than half of Catalonia’s 5.5 million voters want self-rule, most in the wealthy northeastern region want the chance to vote on the issue, causing unease that is beginning to be felt in financial markets.

尽管民意调查显示，在加泰罗尼亚550万选民中，只有不到一半的人想要自治，但大多数想要自治的人都在富裕的东北部地区，他们希望利用机会来进行公投，不过这引起了金融市场的低迷。

The Budget Ministry said that uncertainty created by the stand-off could damage the economy and push up sovereign borrowing costs. Some investors sold Spanish government bonds and switched to Italian debt earlier this week.

预算部表示，这场僵局造成的不确定性可能会损害经济，并提高最高借贷成本。在本周早些时候，一些投资者卖掉了西班牙政府的债券，转而购买了意大利的国债。

Puigdemont and Barcelona mayor Ada Colau on Friday appealed to the Spanish government for dialogue to avert a crisis.

在周五，普伊格蒙特和巴塞罗纳市长Ada Colau呼吁西班牙政府进行对话，以避免危机发生。

But Puigdemont has shown no signs of backing down.

但普伊格蒙特没有表现出任何想要让步的迹象。

“Does anyone think we’re not going to vote? What kind of people do they take us for?” he said to cheering crowds from a stage in a bull-ring in Tarragona to launch the referendum campaign on Thursday.

“还有谁认为我们不会投票?”他们把我们当什么人了?在周四，他在塔拉戈纳（加泰罗尼亚的一个城市）的一个牛圈里向欢呼的人群发表了演讲。