On Sunday, the people of Catalonia and Catalans in major cities around the world cast votes on whether the northeastern Spanish region should secede and become a nation in its own right. In Tokyo too, Japan's Catalan community (and those able to make the trip from China after the polling place in Shanghai was reportedly barred from opening) also had the chance to vote.
The referendum asked two questions: Would you like to see Catalonia become 1) a state within Spain, and/or 2) an independent state? The vote had been ruled unconstitutional by the Spanish judiciary, but Mark Buckton found a partisan crowd at the polling station in Kamiya-cho ready to vote anyway in defiance of Madrid.
Carmina Munte Geli