From blocking airports to using encrypted messaging apps,
Catalan separatists demonstrating against the jailing of nine of their leaders are openly copying tactics devised by pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.
Shortly after Spain's
Supreme Court on Monday sentenced nine Catalan leaders to
prison terms of up to 13 years over their role in a failed 2017 independence bid, 240,000 users of Russian-designed messaging app Telegram received a message urging them to head to Barcelona's El Prat airport, Spain's second busiest.
The goal according to the message -- sent by a new anonymous separatist organisation called
Democratic Tsunami -- was to "paralyse" the airport, just as demonstrators did in Hong Kong in September.