The Catalan parliament, which works based on laws on which the central government does not have nothing to say, required a large majority to pass important laws. The independentist government decided to ignore that law and go on with it, ignoring the advice of their own layers. They know not even half of their population wants independence [1], and they still decided to declare it based on the results of a referendum that, independently of how bad the police actions were, cannot be taken seriously.

If you think that not allowing a minority to impose their ideas on a majority is not democratic, then I do not know what democracy is.

[1] This report is by the (independentist) government of Catalonia, and clearly says that according to their polls less than 44% wants to leave and more than 48% wants to stay in Spain: http://icps.cat/archivos/sondeigs/dossiersc2019cat.pdf?noga=...