Riot police have been filmed hitting a woman with a baton as tensions erupted at Catalan independence protests in Barcelona.
Around 500 people, nearly half of them police, are reported to have been injured and around 200 arrests made after 350,000 people took to the streets on Saturday.
Officers carrying shields and weapons and backed by dozens of riot vans charged to try to disperse protesters who surrounded the National Police headquarters in downtown Barcelona.
Shocking footage then emerged of a woman draped in a Catalan flag being assaulted by an officer as she tried to help a man who had also been hit amid the chaos.
The woman is seen being shoved forcefully three times by an officer before being hit with the baton as onlookers rush to help her.
Other images showed police armed with batons forcing their way through the thousands-strong crowd while demonstrators throw stones and flares.
The police action followed a two-hour standoff, during which demonstrators threw bottles, balls and rubber bullets at officers.
The protest was organised by CDR, a pro-independence pressure group that favours direct action and has cut railtracks and roads as well as trying to storm the regional parliament.
The earlier demonstration had been peaceful, with hundreds of thousands of Catalans marching peacefully through Barcelona on in support of calls to free jailed separatist leaders, as civil rights groups sought to reclaim control of an independence movement that has shown signs of fragmenting.
The city has witnessed daily pro-secession protests since October 14, when Spain's Supreme Court jailed nine politicians and activists for up to 13 years for their role in a
Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) and Omnium Cultural hoped Saturday's march would refocus the secessionist camp's attention by drawing the largest crowd since the court verdicts were passed.
ANC leader Elisenda Paluzie pledging to organise more protests, telling the crowds: "From the street we will keep defending all the (people's) rights but from the institutions we need political answers."
