Spanish Government trying to outlaw peaceful protest
On Wednesday, the Spanish government announced a draft proposal to introduce anti-protest measures that would make Russia’s handling of activists look magnanimous in comparison. If passed, the bill will penalize many accepted forms of peaceful protest with fines and prison sentences, which isn't a great look for a country with a fascist past.
Aside from the contents of the bill, what’s most worrying is how many of the proposed changes to the law seem to have been thought up as a direct response to specific groups and actions, mainly from the left, and mainly emerging out of Spain’s Occupy movement—15M.
Reading between the lines, the proposed bill reads uncannily like a timeline of the last four years, with each law dreamed up as a direct response to any action that has upset the government or caught it with its pants down by exposing corrupt behavior. It takes on online activist groups like Anonymous, as well as a political pressure groups such as the PAH (Platform for People Affected by Mortgages—Spain’s anti-foreclosure activists) and, perhaps most controversially, makes a villain out of those who use social networks for political ends. In short, it’s trying to kill social activism in a country that’s been utterly failed by the state.
Anyone organizing an protest through Facebook that is not officially sanctioned would receive a prison sentence of up to three years, or a huge fine of $45,000. Spain has been much vaunted as the birthplace of Occupy, and it was the spontaneous protests organized through Facebook and Twitter that led to the formation of the first campsites in the center of Madrid. Without 15,000 people marching under an apolitical banner, it’s unlikely that much of what followed, would have, um, followed.
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http://www.vice.com/read/the-spanish-government-is-waging-a-war-on-the-right-to-peaceful-protest
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