Solidarity Protest - Free the 7 Anarchists detained for their political beliefs by ‘Operación Pandora’ in Spain
MEET: Spanish Consulate, 63 North Castle St, Edinburgh EH2 3LJ FRIDAY 23 JAN – FROM 12:00noon-2pm We will begin handing out flyers and raising awareness about the prisoners before and after - please get involved and join us!
Solidarity Protest - Free the 7 Anarchists detained for their political beliefs by ‘Operación Pandora’ in Spain
MEET: Spanish Consulate, 63 North Castle St, Edinburgh EH2 3LJ FRIDAY 16 JAN – FROM 10:00am
On 16/12/2014 the Mossos, a specialist police squad in Spain stormed 14 homes and community centers, destroying and stealing everything they could find of value. Without making any specific accusations and acting in complete secrecy, 11 anarchists were transferred to the National Court. 4 were released two days later - and 7 have ended up in prison, one is a member of the CNT-AIT Union. They all facing secretive Court proceedings.
Last Friday, the 27th December, Brighton SolFed members and Spanish migrant workers from the collective “Marea Granate”, were in Churchill Square supporting a coordinated international protest against the current wave of repression in Spain. The protest was in response to the call for solidarity by our Spanish comrades.
Last November, thirty workers were arrested because of their participation in an education strike. This is only one more step in the repression and intimidation strategy of the Spanish government. The increase of detentions and the new laws against the protests, show that they want ordinary people to keep quiet while they dismantle basic civil rights and attack their live conditions.
Despite the weather, over ten activists took part and around a hundred pamphlets were given to passersby. Some of them, braving the wind and the rain, decided to stop in order to have more information about what's happening and show their support.
An EWN member participated in a school sit in in Almensilla, southern Spain organised by Marea Verde, a grassroots movement to defend public education.
Members of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union and CGT union have gone on indefinite strike and occupied their workplace at the IMESAPI lighting plant in Granollers, Catalunya, Spain, demanding an end to the redundancy package which would see four of the 21 workers let go.
The workers – now 23 days into their strike – are responsible for maintaining the street lights throughout the small Catalan town, and therefore are of critical importance to the town council. IMESAPI itself is a part of the huge ACS conglomerate owned by Florentino Pérez, the multibillionaire engineering tycoon known internationally as the owner of Real Madrid FC.
Crucially, all of the workers at the Granollers plant belong to either the CNT or CGT unions, who have vowed to back the strike as long as it continues, unlike the mainstream Comisiones Obreras union,who signed off on similar redundancy packages at IMESAPI plants in Barcelona (which saw a failed strike) and Tenerife.
Workers are taking action against privatisation plans in a wave of occupations of hospitals and clinics across Madrid, with massive support from patients and from the population of Madrid. Today a 48 hour strike in health care in Madrid saw 80% of workers on strike. This is just the first of four planned walkouts. Huge demonstrations in support of public health care carried banners like “Health care, we don’t sell it, we defend it.” and “100% free and public.” There have been other occupations outside Madrid, such as the hospital occupation in Zaragoza just before the general strike. A grassroots mobilisation called marea blanca, “white tide” has been building in health care for several months. The privatisation reforms would mean patients paying upfront to see a GP and to have essential treatment.
As workers are on general strike in Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain today, we will have updates throughout the day. Here are ongoing strike reports from Spain.
[update 14:00] Barcelona: a large roving picket, composed of pensioners, is blocking roads!
Violent police charges reported now in Valencia.
Caixa banks, responsible for the eviction of Emaya Egana who threw herself to her death just before the eviction, are covered in red paint all over Spain today.
Reports of evictions stopped today by force of numbers blockading the doorways.
Castro Urdiales, a small town, reports CNT demonstration of 400 people.
No trucks went in at MercaCordoba due to mass pickets.
Ferrol: number of workers on strike exceeds all previous general strikes. City completely shut down, nothing open anywhere in the centre of town, demonstration is too big to fit in the central square.
As the Spanish government announced a two year halt on evictions in “the most urgent cases” today, following two suicides by people evicted from their homes, more than a hundred people have demonstrated this evening outside the headquarters of the PP. Rejecting a “whitewash” and calling for a stop on all evictions they occupied various banks, including the Banco de España. Inside the banks people shouted “how many more will you kill?” and “these are not suicides, they are murders”. The government made the announcement following mass anger when a woman in Barakaldo threw herself from her window just before eviction, and a man in Granada was found hanged in his flat when the police came to evict him. Evictions are running at 500 a day in Spain.
A woman committed suicide today in Spain when she was about to be evicted by La Caixa bank. The woman, in Barakaldo, near Bilbao, threw herself from the window just before the eviction. There were protests in many places including Barakaldo and Madrid, and banks across the country are tonight wearing slogans such as "murderers" and "guilty". This is the forth suicide linked to evictions in two weeks.
There are more than 500 evictions a day in Spain and there is a growing anti eviction movement, which mobilises people to blockade houses and physically prevent the evictions from taking place.
Solidarity Protest - Free the 7 Anarchists detained for their political beliefs by ‘Operación Pandora’ in Spain
Solidarity Protest - Free the 7 Anarchists detained for their political beliefs by ‘Operación Pandora’ in Spain
