SPAIN’S Foreign Minister has provoked outrage after dismissing footage of Spanish police attacking voters in Catalonia’s independence referendum as “fake news”.

Alfonso Dastis seemed to suggest that reports of violence meted out by his Guardia Civilia had been manufactured, and that if anyone had been beaten up they probably deserved it.

“I’m not saying that all [of them] are fake pictures, but some of them are and there have been a lot of alternative facts and fake news here,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.

“As I said, if there was at all – and according to the pictures there was – some use of force, it was not a deliberate use of force. It was a provoked use of force.”

Reports in the immediate aftermath of the referendum on October 1 suggested at least 1,066 people had been hurt and needed medical assistance.

Spain’s national police force stormed polling stations, dragging out voters and forcibly stopping others from casting a ballot. Footage of them shooting rubber bullets into crowds and dragging people by the hair was seen all over the world.

The police operation was criticised by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who said he had been “very disturbed”.

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Barcelona to protest the decision of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to effectively take control of Catalonia.

Rajoy invoked Article 155 of Spain’s constitution to “restore the rule of law, coexistence and the economic recovery and to ensure that elections could be held in normal circumstances”.

If approved in the senate on Friday, Madrid will take direct rule of Catalonia that day. Reports suggest the government will also seek to take control of the region’s local police force and its public broadcaster, TV3.

“We are going to establish the authorities who are going to rule the day-to-day affairs of Catalonia according to the Catalan laws and norms,” Dastis told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

“I hope everyone will disregard whatever instructions [the current Catalan government] will be planning to give because they will not have the legal authority to do that.”

The speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, called measures announced by the government on Saturday a “de facto coup d’etat”.

Dastis denied this, saying “If anyone has attempted a coup, it is the Catalan regional government”.

In an address on Catalan television on Saturday night, Puigdemont – speaking in Catalan, Spanish and English – described the move as the worst attack on Catalonia’s institutions since General Franco’s dictatorship.

He said: “We cannot accept these attacks. Those who have scorned the Catalans now want to govern us.

“I will ask parliament to decide how to respond to these attacks on democracy and to act accordingly.”

Puigdemont has said he has the “moral authority” to issue a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) if the government invokes Article 155.

But Spain’s attorney general says if Puigdemont tries that he will be charged with “rebellion”, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.