Tuesday 7 July 2015

Gagging the Spaniards!


PROTESTS against Government imposed austerity cuts have been strongest in Spain, where the occupy movement began with the with the youth-led movement calling itself the 'indignanties' which occupied Madrid's main square in 2011, before Occupy Wall Street got off the ground.
 
From Wednesday the 1st, July, such  demonstrations will be illegal and demonstrators could individually face fines of up to 600,000 euros, or about £500,000.  Human rights organisations have described this new gagging law as an anti-democratic response to the social discontent resulting from the financial crisis and the record unemployment.
 
The new law bans any kind of amateur video footage that has increasingly been used to expose police tactics and which showed police beating protesters in the Basque country last month.
 
Judith Sunderland, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, has said the new law represents 'a direct threat to the rights to meet peacefully and freedom of speech in Spain.'
 
A campaign against the new gagging law called 'No somos Delitos'  (We are not a Crime) is now up and running.

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