Riot police charge Spain protesters

MADRID: Anti-riot police Wednesday clashed with anti-austerity protesters who threw stones at police in Madrid and set a police
van ablaze in Barcelona.

After engaging in sporadic skirmishes through the day, battles broke out again at the tail end of rallies that drew hundreds of thousands of people in Madrid and cities across Spain.


Police charged scores of demonstrators at the central Neptuno square near the Spanish lower house of parliament after coming under a hail of broken bottles and stones, AFP journalists saw.

Not far from the capital's main railway station Atocha, police fired rubber bullets into the ground and air to disperse scores of youths who threw bottles and stones at them.

Rubbish bins stood in flames near the station and at least two shop windows were shattered.

Passers-by later applauded firefighters who extiguished the
flames.

In the northeastern city of Barcelona, where tens of thousands protested, a group of young people attacked police in the city and put a home-made device in a police car, which was seen with flames pouring out the windows.

Police charged the gangs of youths to try to disperse them.