Pro-independence protesters obstructed major roads and a high-speed railway line in Spain's Catalonia region on Monday, one year after a banned referendum on secession that was marred by police violence.

 

Hundreds of activists occupied the high-speed railway tracks in Girona, north of Barcelona, while the central streets in Barcelona and Lleida were blocked, as was the AP-7 motorway which leads to the French border, images on Catalan TV showed.

 

The protests were called online by a grassroots group calling itself the Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CDRs), founded to help stage last year's banned referendum and now demanding a clean break with the Spanish state.