According to latest reports, a new wave of arrests and police raids were carried out in Barcelona and wider Catalonia, but also in Valencia and the Basque Country. Here follow two calls/posters for the upcoming demo in solidarity with the arrestees of March 29th.
RELEASE IMPRISONED STRIKERS – ACQUIT DETAINEES
Since March 29th three strikers, Javi, Isma and Dani, are held in pretrial incarceration due to the events that unfolded in Barcelona on that same day. Some of the detained comrades were released on bail and many others are still prosecuted. Despite its predictable cause, this repression rise can be traced in the constant fear of the system for days like 29M, as well as in its oppressive and authoritarian nature. Neither social cuts, precariousness, misery have stopped us, nor will threats of new repressive laws or our comrades’ isolation do so. We will not accept it. As response, solidarity groups called for a demonstration in Barcelona on April 22nd, demanding the release and acquittal of prosecuted strikers.
Demonstration for the strikers’ liberation
Sunday, April 22nd, 18.00, Plaça de Catalunya (Catalonia Square)
NO CURTAILMENT OF OUR FREEDOM
On March 29th, 79 people were arrested across Catalonia, 56 of them in Barcelona. The authorities ordered the pretrial incarceration of three arrestees, Javi, Isma and Dani. Far from legal, reasons for this have been the criminalization in the media and the social alarm raised by the regional minister of the Interior, Felip Puig.
After a general strike that managed to get hundreds of thousands out in the streets, they want to criminalize the protests and misguide the debate so that we forget why we demonstrate.
They have imprisoned three persons, while a hundred are awaiting trial; they have caused injuries to more than a hundred people only in Barcelona, and on the top of all this, the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Spanish State are threatening us with new repressive measures.
In the weeks to come, the provincial court will rule upon the the appeal lodged by the lawyers of Javi, Isma and Dani. We want them to know that they are not alone. This is why the support groups for imprisoned and arrestees of 29M general strike invite you to join us on the streets, to feel strong altogether and scream out loud that we want them free, demanding the withdrawal of charges for all the prosecuted of the general strike.
No Comments “Barcelona, after March 29th: ‘No curtailment of our freedom’”
6 people were arrested yesterday, 4 of them in Barcelona and 2 in Tarragona. Today in Barcelona, police raided the house of the detainees, getting their computers, money, personal belongings and posters about the May 15 movement. This contradicts the official statement by police, which claimed the arrested ones were accused of burning a Starbucks coffee. Most of the detainees had previously been very involved in assemblies and social movements around neighborhoods. Furthermore, cops will next week set up a website which will let people identify “the violent ones” and the coming arrest of 80 comrades for next week has been leaked to the press today. Tomorrow we will know if the ones arrested yesterday will enter jail too, as 3 students did the day after the strike. It is said cops are arresting people on the day when the most fascist judges are on duty, so that they will make people go to jail.
All these arrests are being considered by cops and press as “preventive” against possible rioting during a ECB summit in Barcelona on May 3. The thing is, no demonstration or gathering had been, or will be, called for that day. Press and cops just made up the story of “anti system”* wanting to attack the summit, and therefore justifying all the arrests and new repressive measures (border between Spain and France will be controlled to prevent activists entering Barcelona).
*anti system (antisistema) is a word being used by cops, politicians and press to identify anarchists, antiauthoritarian communists, indepes and lefties.
18 people have been arrested in Navarre accused of “incidents” on the day of the General Strike. 14 were arrested on Thursday and four others in earlier days. Of the 14 arrested more recently, 7 are minors and at least one as young as 14, who was arrested at school (go figure!)
Besides all these arbitrary arrests, police has been acting most cocky, seriously injuring several and eventually killing one person in Bilbao. It’s notable that most of this repression happens in Catalonia and the Basque Country, oppressed nationalities under the Spanish boot, where it would seem that the bourgeois authorities feel that they have more leeway to behave brutally and push the legal frame until it breaks.
However it’s probable that the repressive excesses will not be limited to these two countries because the social situation is pretty much boiling in all the Spanish state.