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.
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