Spain
Big protest against the abolition of the “gag law”
Police officers walk past the Spanish Parliament in Madrid during the protest march. Photo: Paul White / AP / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Critics see the so-called “gag law” in Spain as a restriction of fundamental rights. Numerous demonstrators see it differently and took to the streets against a planned easing.
Tens of thousands of people have protested in Spain against the planned relaxation of the security laws by the left-wing government.
Under the motto “No to the uncertainty of the citizens”, the demonstrators marched in Madrid to the Parliament and the Ministry of the Interior. Thousands of officers from various police units and the heads of all parties from the conservative spectrum and the far-right Vox took part in the rally. The Jusapol police union had called for a protest. She estimated the number of participants at 150,000. Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry spoke of around 20,000 demonstrators.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had promised in October that his government would abolish the controversial «law to protect the security of citizens». The decrees passed in parliament by the then conservative government of Mariano Rajoy in 2015, popularly known as the «gag law» (Ley Mordaza), according to critics, restrict fundamental rights and freedoms and increase the risk of abuse of office.
Open letter from musicians and artists
After saying goodbye, artists, journalists and other people repeatedly ended up in the dock for their texts, opinions and works. After the rapper Carlos Hásel was sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting the old king Juan Carlos, tens of thousands took to the streets across Spain in February.
In open letters, more than 300 musicians, writers, actors and artists, including Hollywood stars Pedro Almodóvar and Javier Bardem, complained that Spain is “on a par with countries like Turkey or Morocco, where artists are also in prison because they are denounce state abuse ».
The demonstrators see it differently: The conservative head of government of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, described the planned reform as an “attack on the rule of law”.