Nations move to protect the integrity of their territory. It’s kind of part of their job.
In the past these people would have had a date with a blindfold and cigarette at dawn being on the losing end.
Well, it is 2017. They held a vote on a political issue they supported. What they did was little different than Brexit and no different from similar votes in Scotland or Kosovo. Don’t recall a bunch of Scots going to the tower for supporting separation. If they took up arms after losing, maybe, but these people didn’t do that. They supported a democratic process to separate, the central government said it wasn’t legal, and they didn’t start a revolution in response. They supported continuing to work for peaceful separation. It will not end well to make that region an oppressed subject state of the Madrid central government.