Barcelona: Clashes erupted between riot police and over half a million citizens who took to the streets of Barcelona to protest against the hefty prison sentences recently handed out by the Spanish Supreme Court to several leaders of the Catalan independence movement.

According to police figures, some 5,25,000 people took to the streets of the regional capital on Friday, with many of the protesters marching from different parts of the Catalonian region, whose government had launched an unsuccessful bid for secession from Spain in 2017.