The Spanish government stepped up its demand for Catalonia's pro-independence leaders to denounce violent separatist activists as a third night of clashes between protesters and police unfolded in Barcelona and elsewhere in the region.
Pedro Sánchez, Spanish prime minister, made his call on Wednesday evening as masked protesters in the heart of the city threw stones and acid at police, erected barricades and lit fires that in some instances set cars ablaze. There were similar scenes in the strongly pro-independence city of Girona.
Mr Sánchez directed his comments at the regional government - which has encouraged demonstrations against recent prison sentences for nine separatist leaders involved in a failed push for independence in 2017.
"They have the political and moral duty to condemn without excuses . . . the use of violence in Catalonia," he said.
In comments that appeared intended to emphasise divisions within the Catalan independence movement - which ranges from the centre right to the far left - the prime minister accused Quim Torra, head of the Catalan administration, of governing in the interest of "radicalism" rather than majority separatist opinion, let alone the region as a whole.
But Mr Sánchez brushed aside opposition calls for the national government to take more direct control of events in Catalonia, such as assuming command of the Mossos, the regional police force.
Catalan authorities have emphasised the peaceful nature of most of the protests, arguing that the independence movement is purely pacific. Early on Wednesday Mr Torra wrote in a tweet: "All support for mobilisations and massive and peaceful marches. No violence represents us." But later in the day he repeatedly refused to answer questions on whether he condemned the violence of the previous night.
By contrast, Foment del Treball, the Catalan employers' group, warned that the violence represented a "risk to economic activity and, what is worse, for peaceful coexistence".
Calling for unambiguous condemnation of the violence and an end to the "anomaly" of the regional government encouraging blockades, it added that all sides had the responsibility "of avoiding the destruction" of the reputation of the region and the city.
In a further sign of concern, the Spanish football league asked that a Barcelona home game against Real Madrid scheduled for October 26 be moved from Camp Nou to the Spanish capital.
Mr Torra's administration faces the dilemma of reconciling its support for the protests - including a massive effort by demonstrators to block Barcelona airport that resulted in more than 100 cancelled flights on Monday - with its legal duty to uphold public order, which includes responsibility for the regional police force.
The Catalan authority has encouraged protests against the Spanish supreme court's historic decision this week to give prison sentences of between nine and 13 years to the nine separatist leaders for their roles in an illegal independence referendum and a subsequent unilateral declaration of independence.
The court found the defendants guilty of sedition - leadership of an uprising that undermined the rule of law - and, in some instances, the misuse of public funds. But separatist leaders depict the verdict as a politically motivated denial of basic rights.
The toughest sentence was for Oriol Junqueras, deputy head of the Catalan regional government at the time of the 2017 referendum.
Mr Torra and his colleagues appear reluctant to follow their predecessors in breaking Spanish law, and have been warned by Mr Sánchez's government that Madrid could yet temporarily take control of the Mossos police force away from the Catalan administration by activating Spain's public safety law.
Mr Sánchez's government has underlined its satisfaction with the Mossos' response to the protests, even as some demonstrators have accused the police of acting with excessive force. But, after a meeting with Mr Sánchez on Wednesday, Pablo Casado, leader of the centre-right People's party, accused the government of doing little and demanded that it trigger the public safety law.
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