Demonstraties in Europa: Aanzwellend protest in Spaanse steden

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Anon4justice twitterde op zaterdag 12-05-2012 om 18:03:21 #Madrid's #livestream's R packed with viewers!! #solidarity #oo #osf #occupy #ows #m12 #may12 #spanishrevolution #revolution #ola #odc #ochi reageer retweet

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Spain's indignados return to the streets amid fears of crackdown

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Protesters plan four-day campaign to mark the anniversary of Madrid's 'occupy' movement

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The exhibition at Madrid's Ateneo cultural centre is full of precious artefacts carefully conserved to tell the story of a remarkable event in Spanish history; a moment when the world looked on in amazement at the eruption of a new utopian movement for change.

But this is no tribute to the distant past. The nylon tents, hand-painted cardboard signs and posters telling people to share their "dreams of a better world" are only a year old. They come from Spain's indignado movement as it marks its first birthday by reclaiming the streets and defying a rightwing government that has pledged to stop it reoccupying Madrid's Puerta del Sol square.

Police helicopters clattered overhead as indignado marches headed towards the square. Several thousand people were taking part in a good-humoured demonstration that included a loud birthday party and chants of "the people united will never be defeated". There were similar demonstrations in Barcelona and other cities around the country.

As the indignados began to gather, a tense standoff was developing with riot police, who were under orders to prevent them staying overnight. Those instructions came from the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy, whose People's party (PP) triumphed in November elections. It has not just vowed to prevent the indignados from camping out, as they did for weeks after taking over Puerta del Sol last year, but is preparing tough public order laws. "We are calling for respect for the law and responsibility," said the deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. "This government will make sure the law is obeyed." As the deadline to leave Puerta del Sol expired, the square was still packed with the chanting indignados showing little desire to go home. "I'm staying here all night," said Emilio Torres, who came equippied with a tent and a sleeping bag. "I don't think they will dare get rid of us."

"This is meant to finish at 10 o'clock, but we are calm," said one police officer in the square.

The prospect of confrontation with a rightwing government preoccupied with controlling protests has pushed some on the left into a trench mentality.

One indication has been the emergence of a Twitter hashtag, #HolaDictadura, or HelloDictatorship, claiming the clock of political freedoms is being turned back to the days of General Francisco Franco.

"I lived through Franco's time, so I know what the dangers are," said pensioner Julio Llorente as he visited the Ateneo exhibition. "The PP is taking us back to that sort of world."

Officially, indignados – whose protest last May set an example followed by "occupy" campaigners from Wall Street to St Paul's – are allowed in the Puerta del Sol for a maximum of 10 hours during the four days of planned action. But that looked unlikely to happen, with organisers hoping sheer numbers will prevent police from moving in to stop a continuous demonstration that started on Saturdayand is due to end on Tuesday.

"People will stay, that much is obvious," said charity worker José Ignacio Blasco, who spent his evenings and weekends in the Puerta del Sol last May. "Violence is what authorities want because it is what they understand, but this movement is pacifist. That is exactly what they find so difficult.

"If they want to criminalise non-violent protest, they might as well declare Gandhi and Martin Luther King to have been terrorists," he said.

The clampdown on protests comes after a year in which unemployment has risen to 24%, a return to recession and, in recent days, the nationalisation of the fourth biggest bank, Bankia. Spain is at the centre of the eurozone crisis and Rajoy's government is fixated by the threat of violent protest.

"We cannot allow fooling around with rocks or molotov cocktails to push up bond yields," said secretary of state for security Ignacio Ulloa after Spain sent 8,000 police, and spent ¤1m (£800,000), to protect the 22 board members of the European Central Bank when they met at a luxury Barcelona hotel earlier this month.

"Only with security will Spain get itself out of this difficult situation."

On that occasion Rajoy's government also suspended Europe's Schengen agreement so that it could reintroduce border controls to keep foreign protesters away – although there were no arrests or incidents in Barcelona.

Similar fears saw a press helicopter working for El País newspaper, which had been given the go-ahead to record the demonstration marking the end of a 29 March general strike, ordered away by interior ministry officials in Madrid. On the same day, photographs of violent protests by a handful of radicals in Barcelona featured on the front page of the New York Times.Interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz was forced to admit that some police officers appeared to have used excessive force after they pursued students and schoolchildren protesting against education cuts around the streets of Valencia in February. On that occasion, local police chief Antonio Moreno called the young protesters "the enemy".

Faced with a police crackdown, it is not clear whether Spaniards will find the enthusiasm to rekindle the spirit of last May. "The beginning was fervent and passionate, but participation has dwindled over the year," admitted Sara, a trainee teacher who joined a culture group that emerged from the Puerta del Sol demonstrations. "But it has served to awaken a whole lot of people."

In fact, hundreds of small groups– covering everything from stopping banks repossessing homes to setting up co-operatives – have kept the flame alive, often braving the cold to meet and debate in neighbourhood squares. "It was inevitable that the movement would fragment and disperse. We never wanted it to become a political party, but preferred to welcome all sorts of ideas and create something new" said Octavio, a writer from the same group. "We have kept going, meeting wherever we can. Some of our group's assemblies have been in railway stations or the metro."

Ideas have been swapped over a myriad of internet sites, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds with cyber-assemblies that continued the trademark popular open meetings of last May that saw the Puerta del Sol hailed as a new incarnation of the ancient Greek agora, or debating place.

Older protesters, many with years of activism behind them, are delighted by the new generation that has emerged. "Over the past 30 years things have been winding down," said 67-year-old Concha, a retired philosopher. "But this new generation is so much better educated and prepared than we were."

One of the classic posters conserved in the Ateneo reads: "Mum, this is what you taught me to do. Thanks!" A scrawled addition from an anonymous mother reads: "I always knew you were listening, but I am so happy to hear you say it."

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Op donderdag 19 mei 2011 15:51 schreef okiokinl het volgende:
ja het is wel het nieuwe protesteren, een goeie zaak.

maar het gaat hier natuurlijk niet om een dictatuur omver werpen...

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De Puerta Del Sol (plein) in Madrid is momenteel het centrum van deze protesten, en via sociale media wordt men opgeroepen ook zo snel mogelijk te komen.

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Spaanse onderwijssector staakt tegen bezuinigingen

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De gehele Spaanse onderwijssector, van basisscholen tot universiteiten, is vandaag in staking gegaan. Een deel van de stakende scholieren, studenten en docenten is de straat op gegaan om te demonstreren.

De staking is uitgeroepen in veertien van de zeventien Spaanse regio’s. Ongeveer zeven miljoen leerlingen hebben daardoor geen les. De vakbonden konden nog geen schatting geven over de deelname aan de staking, maar volgens Tom Liebens, correspondent voor het Belgische VRT Radio, zijn er alleen in Barcelona al zestigduizend mensen op de been:

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Spain's desperate miners gather for a protest march on the capital

It is 284 miles from the Asturian valleys to Madrid. But those making the trip feel they have little to lose as savage cuts loom

Cristián wears the yellow and blue Asturian flag, the symbol of his homeland, tied around his dusty overalls. Olga, his mother, is writing a dedication on it that reads: "You are the hope of the mining valleys." She wants to lend her strength to her son for the miners' three-week protest march, which set off on Friday and ends in Madrid on 11 July – the most likely date for the prime minister's appearance before parliament to report on Spain's bank bailout.

Cristián's father, José Manuel, 49, a miner who took early retirement, watches from a distance. "I was a miner for 20 years; my father was also a miner and so are my two sons. I don't know what will happen to us if the mines are shut down. Those making their way to Madrid are our last hope."

Eighty miners are setting out on the 248-mile journey from Mieres, a town near the Asturian capital, Oviedo. The "black march" will cover 19 stages, with miners joining from León, Teruel and Palencia along the way. Around 200 are expected to arrive in the Spanish capital next month, one of many acts planned to protest at the proposed 63% cuts in coal subsidies already approved by the EU.

Ana Sánchez is on her knees, saying goodbye to her three-year-old goddaughter Marina. Sánchez has worked as a miner for nine years, at the María Luisa mine. She is one of four women from the Asturian valley who will join the march. "I have to do this for my unborn granddaughter. I will do whatever it takes."

One of her two children, Jane, 24, is due to give birth in November. At 45, Sánchez says "it will all be over" if the mine shuts down. "The cuts are going to choke us, and there will be no work for anyone – not for miners and not for all those who depend on us." Sánchez lives in El Entrego, a small village in the Asturian mining valley that, like so many others, revolves entirely around its coalfields.

"If miners have to leave, the schools will also close, as well as the shops and businesses. And where are the 50,000 people affected supposed to go?" she asks.

Luis Rodríguez is one of those who cannot leave. A miner at the Sotón mine for the last 10 years, he has commitments: a mortgage to pay, a nine-year-old, and a six-month-old baby. His wife, a waitress, recently lost her job. "How can I sell my house to pay off my mortgage if we have to leave?" he asks. He has the same problem as so many of his colleagues who are paying off mortgages: "If the mine is shut down, no one is going to want to buy a house on dead land."

Pepe Pérez, 45, a miner from Cerredo, adds: "The cuts approved by the conservative government would suffocate mining to the point that it would disappear. These subsidies have already been approved, so it is like we are being robbed. They want us to starve, and we cannot allow it. We must fight."

Pérez hugs his daughter Vanesa. "It is because of our children that we are marching. I took part in the second black march in history, in 2010, but that only lasted four days. This one will be much harder – it is almost 500km – but there is no other way. The government must realise we are not going to give up."

Fireworks start to fly across the Mieres sky as the 80 miners stand ready. Some of them are wearing black T-shirts bearing slogans such as: "They want to end it all. Keep the coal mines open." Before they leave, José Angel Fernández Villa, of the Soma-Fitag-UGT trade union, gives them words of encouragement: "We must persuade the government to call an urgent commission to monitor the coal plan, and it must modify the economic provisions. These brutal cuts will kill the mining industry".

It is all or nothing now: as Jorge Expósito, 26, says: "There won't be any more chances." Expósito works at the Candín mine, where five miners have locked themselves in, along with three from the Santiago mine, for 25 days now, 300 metres below ground, as they wait for a solution. Around 8,000 miners in provinces across Spain have been on strike since 31 May. "We will not stop until this is resolved," says Expósito. "They are stealing our future, and we are not going to let our families starve."

On 18 June, a general strike was called throughout the mining valleys, with a turnout of nearly 100%. There have also been road and rail barricades in all the affected areas, with burning tyres and logs being used to block the railroad tracks.

"We want to get the attention of a government that is ignoring us. We want them to be willing to negotiate, to talk," says Víctor Luis Pérez, 30, while his wife Rocío tenderly removes his helmet and writes "I love you, keep going" on it. His colleagues add their own words of encouragement. Those who cannot walk say they will be there in spirit.

Before leaving, the workers place red roses on the monument to dead miners as the notes of the mining hymn Santa Bárbara Bendita, in honour of their patron saint, ring out. The miners set off. "I just want my kid to make it there, and for this situation to be resolved. We just want to work," cries Violeta, another marcher.

Their workmates and relatives walk with them for a considerable distance, and as they pass before a nursing home one of the residents, Gloria, 69, begins to sing the hymn. Everyone at the home stands at the gates to support the marchers. "These are our miners, our brave hearts," shouts Gloria. She is the wife, daughter, sister and now grandmother of miners. "Keep going, don't give up," she cries as her grandson walks by. All of the elderly people at the home carry small placards with black ribbons on them, and they weep as they hold them up.

Despite a long road ahead, Cristián is optimistic. "This is not the first time miners have fought for all workers," he says. "We are an example to everyone, and we hope that the government will see reason."

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Spanish take to streets in protest as MPs pass ¤65bn austerity package

Spain's cost of borrowing hits record high as Germany approves potential bond-buying with leftovers from ¤100bn banks bailout

Protesters are set to take to the streets of 80 Spanish cities as Spain's government pushed a ¤65bn austerity package through parliament and the country paid record prices to borrow money from sceptical markets.

Angry civil servants had blocked traffic in several main Madrid avenues earlier on Thursday, with protesters puncturing the tyres on dozens of riot police vans amid growing upset at austerity, recession and 24% unemployment.

The prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, was able to get the measures through parliament comfortably, using only the votes of his majority centre-right Popular party.

The finance minister, Cristóbal Montoro, who on Wednesday warned "there is no money" to pay civil service wages, said Spain could not go deeper into debt. "Financing public services with more deficit and more debt will doom us," he said.

Proof of Spain's growing financing problems came when it paid on Thursday a record interest rate of 6.459% to sell five-year bonds, while rates on 10-year bonds rose back above the unsustainable 7% level.

France paid less than 1% for similar five-year bonds as investors shun southern economies for what they see as the eurozone's safer core.

A bailout for Spain's ailing banks was approved at a key vote by German legislators, though a last minute surprise in the package saw a move towards enabling potential bond-buying with leftover money from the ¤100bn on offer.

Officials in Brussels and Madrid insisted that bond-buying and bank bailouts were not connected, even though they appeared in a bailout document released on Thursday.

"The aid programme for bank recapitalisation is destined only for that and not for the purchase of bonds on the primary or secondary markets," a Spanish government source said.

European commission spokesman Simon O'Connor said: "There is no link between assistance for bank recapitalisation in Spain and any other type of financial assistance, which might be requested at some further juncture by Spain or anybody else."

But a draft European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) bailout contract published by the German parliament lays out the conditions by which Spain might request the funds to buy bonds with money currently earmarked only for banks.

Madrid would have to formally ask eurozone finance ministers for their agreement and then renegotiate the memorandum of understanding as specific terms for that aid were drawn up.

"What Spain and the market need is some reassurance on the eurozone agreement that the Spanish state would not be responsible for the bank bailout," said Luis Garicano of the London School of Economics. "Leaving the door confusingly ajar as to a larger rescue does not help Spain, whose financial needs would anyway be much larger."

Germany's finance ministry said Spain would need ¤300bn in "European refinancing funds" between now and the end of 2014 if cut out of the bond markets.

The bailout package, which offers up to ¤100bn to Spanish banks bloated with toxic real estate assets, is due to be signed on Friday. Banks are expected to request ¤65bn of that loan, leaving around ¤35bn.

The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, on Thursday insisted Madrid remained liable for the bailout money – despite eurozone plans to eventually move that liability directly to the banks.

He warned German MPs the slightest perceived risk of Spanish insolvency could trip up the entire 17-nation eurozone.

"We have a strong interest in helping Spain continue with its fundamental economic reforms," he said. "It can only work if the problems in the banking sector are solved. It's a matter of breaking a vicious circle."

His department, in a separate document, stressed that last month's EU summit agreed, "unmistakably at German insistence", there could only be direct aid to banks once a new European banking supervisory authority was operating.

"Supervision on paper is not enough for that. It must be properly established and functioning. The initiative corresponds to the German demand that control and liability are inseparable," it said. "These conditions do not apply in the current case of Spain."

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Demonstratie in Madrid met geweld beëindigd

De oproerpolitie in Madrid heeft vannacht hard ingegrepen om een grote groep demonstranten uit elkaar te drijven. Daarbij is volgens ooggetuigen met rubberkogels geschoten en met wapenstokken geslagen. 6 mensen raakten daarbij gewond, terwijl 7 betogers werden opgepakt.

Kleine groepjes demonstranten hadden het aan het eind van de verder rustig verlopen mars voorzien op het zwaarbewaakte parlementsgebouw. Ook gooiden ze met flessen naar de politie.

Dat gebeurde op de Puerta del Sol, het grootste plein in het centrum van de Spaanse hoofdstad. Daar hadden zich eerder op de avond honderdduizenden demonstranten verzameld om te betogen tegen de zware bezuinigingen.

In totaal gingen donderdag in ruim 80 Spaanse steden mensen de straten op. Veel Spanjaarden voelen zich beroofd door de ingrepen van de regering, die in totaal voor 65 miljard euro bezuinigt. Zo wordt de kerstbonus voor ambtenaren flink beperkt, wat neerkomt op een korting op het jaarsalaris van 7 procent. In 2010 moesten de Spanjaarden ook al inleveren.

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Spanish government accused of purging critics from national radio and TV

Journalists who have questioned rightwing party's austerity policy have lost jobs at RTVE

A government making a raft of public spending cuts might not be expected to win many friends. But critics of Mariano Rajoy's rightwing Partido Popular (PP) claim that a series of departures from Spain's leading state broadcasting organisations are a sign that it will not tolerate any criticism.

A number of journalists who have presumed to question the administration's austerity policy have been purged from the national RTVE radio and TV channel. And this weekend the most high-profile exit in recent months – that of Ana Pastor, the presenter of Los Desayunos de TVE, a popular breakfast news magazine programme – was announced.

Spanish politicians tend to get an easy ride from the press and rarely face a grilling. Pastor, however, has a reputation for calling the people she interviews to account and asking difficult questions. "They're getting rid of me for acting as a journalist," Pastor declared, adding that it was a political decision.

On Saturday the channel said Pastor was leaving after refusing the offer of a job as a presenter of a night-time programme. For her part, Pastor said: "I thought they were going to offer me something [else] but there was nothing of substance. The head of news said we should both think about my future but it was all vague. He said let's see what happens between now and January. They didn't want to say I was sacked, but I was, and I'm not one to hang around earning public money and doing nothing."

Pastor said it was clear that politicians "don't like uncomfortable interviews", while another source at TVE said the government was "allergic to discussion". The departure – one of a number of controversial exits critics insist are sackings – comes after the removal of Fran Llorente, the RTVE head of news whom the government accused of political bias. Pepa Bueno, a former news anchor who, according to one source, "would have been sacked if she hadn't already left last month", said Llorente was under constant pressure from PP officials.

"I never received any sort of political instructions from Llorente," Bueno added. "He always took the heat and left the rest of us to get on with being journalists." Some 70% of staff voted against the appointment of Llorente's successor, Julio Somoano.

Since 1980 RTVE staff have been public appointees. In 2006 the law was changed so that appointments had to be approved by a two-thirds majority of parliament. This year the PP used its overall majority to scrap the 2006 amendment and has begun staffing the channel with veterans of the last PP government, which lost power in 2004 in the wake of the Madrid bombings. TVE was found guilty by Spain's high court of "manipulation" during its coverage of the 2002 general strike. This manipulation included the spectacle of reporters standing in deserted city centres insisting that life was going on as normal.

In January 2010 TVE stopped carrying advertising and was funded by a ¤550m state subsidy plus ¤500m raised by levying a special tax on telecommunications of 0.9% of pre-tax profits and 3% in the case of privately owned TV channels, both of which have appealed to the European court against the imposition of this tax.

Pastor is one of the country's best-known journalists. It is not just Spanish politicians whom she has discomfited. During the course of an interview with the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which she questioned him about the Arab spring, her headscarf gradually slipped backwards, revealing her hair. She claimed it was unintentional.

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Op maandag 6 augustus 2012 18:34 schreef rsfxrs020 het volgende:
Aan de frequentie van de berichten te zien gaat het steeds beter met Spanje.

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Op maandag 6 augustus 2012 18:43 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Of slechter met de media.

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Op maandag 6 augustus 2012 18:51 schreef rsfxrs020 het volgende:

[..]

Ja, dat kan natuurlijk ook zo zijn.
Hoewel het mij totaal niet interesseert ben je wel goed bezig.

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Spanish 'Robin Hood' mayor sets off on three-week march

Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo plans to march across Andalusia and persuade local leaders to skip debt payments

A Spanish mayor who became a cult hero for staging robberies at supermarkets and giving stolen groceries to the poor sets off this week on a three-week march that could embarrass the government and energise anti-austerity campaigners.

Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, mayor of the town of Marinaleda – population 2,645 – in the southern region of Andalusia, said food stolen last week in the robberies went to families hit hardest by Spain's economic crisis.

Seven people have been arrested for participating in the two raids, in which union activists, cheered on by supporters, piled food into supermarket carts and walked out without paying while Sanchez Gordillo, 59, stood outside.

He has political immunity as an elected member of Andalusia's regional parliament, but says he would be happy to renounce it and be arrested himself.

"There are people who don't have enough to eat. In the 21st century, this is an absolute disgrace," he told Reuters this week in an interview at the Atocha train station in Madrid, tugging on his greying beard.

Sanchez Gordillo says he wants to draw attention to the human face of Spain's economic mess – poverty levels have risen by over 15% since 2007, a quarter of workers are jobless and tens of thousands have been evicted from their homes.

The conservative government says an official has no business flouting the law.

"You can't be Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham," said Alfonso Alonso, spokesman for the ruling People's Party (PP) in the national Parliament. "This man is just searching for publicity at the cost of everyone else."

Media coverage of the supermarket stunt has made Sánchez Gordillo a national celebrity. While talking to Reuters he was approached by supporters who shook his hand and thanked him for his stand against the conservative government.

His home province of Andalusia is one of the parts of Spain worst hit by its crisis: one worker in three is jobless.

On Thursday he begins his trek from Jódar, the town with Andalusia's highest unemployment rate, planning to march across the region in blistering summer heat to persuade other local leaders to refuse to comply with government reforms.

He plans to tell mayors to skip debt payments, stop layoffs, cease home evictions and ignore central government demands for budget cuts, a message that infuriates Mariano Rajoy's government as it tries to convince investors in Spanish bonds that he can fix the battered economy.

The EU has demanded Spain shrink one of Europe's highest budget deficits to prevent the continent's debt crisis from spreading. Rajoy, in power since December, has ordered spending cuts and tax rises. With poverty rising, protests have gained momentum.

Despite the small size of the town where he has been mayor for 30 years, Sánchez Gordillo has long been a fringe figure on the national stage, known for criticism of the mainstream political parties.

He has introduced a cooperative farming system in Marinaleda and has repeatedly tried to take over land for farming, the latest target being 1,200 hectares of land owned by the Ministry of Defence.

His message used to draw only a small following during Spain's boom years when many farm workers, especially in agricultural Andalusia, abandoned fields to work in the profitable construction sector.

But now he has won far more attention as the collapse of a housing bubble forced thousands of unskilled workers back onto farms, while the government sank billions of euros of taxpayer funds into weak banks.

"They say I'm dangerous. And the bankers who are let off for fraud? That's not dangerous? The banks which borrow from the ECB for 1% then resell that debt to Spaniards for 6% - they're not dangerous?" he said.

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Op dinsdag 11 september 2012 19:28 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Catalonië dreigt met onafhankelijkheid

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Adbusters twitterde op dinsdag 25-09-2012 om 18:23:43 Massive action in Madrid called Ocupa el Congreso (Occupy the Congress). Parliament surrounded, new elections demanded: http://t.co/50BW72te reageer retweet

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'Democracy kidnapped!' Police clash with protesters in Madrid protests

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Carmen Rivero – a 40-year old photographer who travelled overnight by bus from the southern city of Granada – said, “We think this is an illegal government. We want the parliament to be dissolved, a referendum and a constituent assembly so that the people can have a say in everything.”

Another 100 protesters were scattered across the city’s main square, the Plaza de Espana.

“This is not a real democracy. This is a democracy kidnapped by the parties in collaboration with the economic powers and the people have no say in it,” said Romula Barnares, a 40-year-old artist wearing sunglasses with a dollar sign on one lens and a euro sign on another.

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Tienduizenden Spanjaarden betogen tegen bezuinigingen

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Duizenden Spanjaarden zijn vandaag in Madrid en 55 andere steden de straat opgegaan om te protesteren tegen bezuinigingen van de regering.

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Spanish banks to restrict evictions after suicides

Two-year freeze in cases of extreme hardship as union backs police who refuse to enforce orders

Spain's banking association announced on Monday it would freeze eviction orders for the next two years in cases of "extreme hardship", following widespread alarm and protests after a woman killed herself on Friday moments before she was due to be evicted, the second such death in less than a month.

"This cannot be allowed to go on," said Juan Carlos Mediavilla, a judge who attended the scene after Amaia Egaña, 53, leapt from her fourth-floor flat in the northern city of Bilbao.

"It's a problem which has been talked about for some time. The time for talk is over and steps must be taken for something to happen."

Within hours of Egaña's death noisy protesters had gathered on the streets of Bilbao. Stickers saying "murderers" were fixed to cash machines, while the governing People's party and opposition Socialists pledged to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to agree on reforming mortgage laws.

Maria Cumbicus, who has fallen behind on her mortgage payments since she lost her job as a cleaner three months ago, is in danger of joining the list of 400,000 who have been evicted in Spain since a property boom ended in 2008 and the country sank into economic crisis.

"It is just terrible never knowing if you'll be able to get back into your home every time you go out," said Cumbicus, 50, who is originally from Ecuador, one of many who moved to Spain when its economy boomed but have since fallen on hard times in a country where one in four are on the dole. Her husband was forced to return to Ecuador because he was self-employed and not entitled to unemployment benefit after losing his job.

Cumbicus's flat on the outskirts of Pamplona, a city famous for its annual bull-running festival, was put up for auction in court on Mondaymorning, but no bids were accepted, so she now has 20 days in which to negotiate with the bank and see if she can transfer the property in lieu of payment. Under Spanish law, mortgage holders are still liable for outstanding debts even if they are evicted.

"All these years I've been paying and now I'm going to be on the street," she said. "Halting evictions is all very well after these suicides, but there is very little you can do on your own unless someone comes to your aid."

Spain's banks have come under fire from protesters and opposition politicians for continuing to carry out evictions even after some received part of a European bailout negotiated by Madrid which could amount to ¤100bn (£80bn).

Details of the cross-party deal to reform the mortgage law by decree remain under discussion, but the minister for the economy, Luis de Guindos, said: "No family of good faith should become homeless because of the crisis."

The Platform of those Affected by Mortgages (PAH) grassroots group, which has been campaigning to change the law for nearly three years, says a moratorium on evictions would not be enough.

"This measure would not affect foreclosures under way and so leave out hundreds of thousands of families still swamped by proceedings. We demand an immediate halt to all foreclosures, as long as they affect first homes and debtors in good faith," a PAH statement said.

The United Police Union said it would back any of its members who conscientiously objected to enforcing eviction orders.

"We're not robots, we're human beings and this is like the soldier in a firing squad who refuses to shoot, even knowing he will take the place of the one to be shot," said Jose Manuel Sanchez, the union's secretary general.

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Op woensdag 18 mei 2011 00:04 schreef Strani het volgende:
Spanje ligt dan wel niet in het Midden-Oosten, maar het zou wel het eerste Europese land kunnen worden dat het voorbeeld van landen als Egypte volgt.

Afgelopen weekend ontstonden kleinschalige protesten, welke op dit moment zijn uitgemond in veel grotere demonstraties of 'camp-outs'. De Puerta Del Sol (plein) in Madrid is momenteel het centrum van deze protesten, en via sociale media wordt men opgeroepen ook zo snel mogelijk te komen.

Men protesteert voornamelijk tegen de enorm hoge werkeloosheid in Spanje, en het algemeen gebrek aan toekomstmogelijkheden voor jongeren. De protesten komen slechts enkele dagen voor gemeenteraadsverkiezingen.

Iets om de komende dagen in elk geval goed in de gaten te houden.

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Op maandag 4 februari 2013 10:06 schreef TweeGrolsch het volgende:
Ik snap protesteren tegen werkloosheid nooit zo... Hoe helpt dat werkloosheid op te lossen? Kun je niet beter demonstreren vóór bepaalde voorstellen.

Er zijn ook bijna nooit demonstraties voor iets, altijd tegen. Dat typeert het soort mens dat demonstreert nogal.

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Spaanse Volkspartij in actie tegen beschuldigingen

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De in Spanje regerende Volkspartij (PP) van premier Mariano Rajoy heeft maandag juridische stappen aangekondigd tegen de bewering dat de partij illegale praktijken benut in zijn financiën.

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Op maandag 4 februari 2013 10:06 schreef TweeGrolsch het volgende:
Ik snap protesteren tegen werkloosheid nooit zo... Hoe helpt dat werkloosheid op te lossen? Kun je niet beter demonstreren vóór bepaalde voorstellen.

Er zijn ook bijna nooit demonstraties voor iets, altijd tegen. Dat typeert het soort mens dat demonstreert nogal.

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Vrouw steekt zichzelf in brand in Spaanse bank

Dat de Spaanse bankencrisis ook leidt tot persoonlijke drama's hebben we de afgelopen jaren al veel gezien. Maar zelden ging het protest zo ver, als bij een vrouw in het oosten van Spanje.

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1,5 miljoen Portugezen de straat op tegen bezuinigingen
Naar schatting 1,5 miljoen Portugezen hebben zaterdag in meer dan 30 steden gedemonstreerd tegen bezuinigingen en lastenverhogingen.

De betogingen volgen op de grootste belastingverhoging in de geschiedenis van het Zuid-Europese land.

De demonstranten riepen de regering op te vertrekken. Ze droegen spandoeken met leuzen als 'Verkiezingen nu!' en 'Trojka naar de hel'. De bezuinigingen en belastingverhogingen zijn doorgevoerd onder druk van de zogeheten trojka in ruil voor financiële steun. De trojka bestaat uit de Europese Unie, de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB) en het Internationaal Monetair Fonds (IMF).

Een groep die zich 'naar de duivel met de trojka' noemt had opgeroepen tot de protesten.
Inspecteurs van de trojka brengen zondag een bezoek aan Griekenland. Ze gaan bekijken hoe Griekenland zich houdt aan de bezuinigingen en hervormingen die het moet doorvoeren in ruil voor steun.

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How the corrala movement is occupying Spain

The financial crash and plummeting property market struck Spain with a high eviction rate and a rash of empty houses. Now victims of the crisis are fighting back by setting up home in a network of vacant buildings

"Life changes when you lose everything," says Manoli Cortés. "There was a time when I was happy just to work and look after my home. Now, at the age of 65, I have suddenly become an activist." She is sitting in a typical Spanish living room: immaculately clean, filled with family photographs and dark wood furniture. Meanwhile, with its crisp, geometric lines, sliding French doors and private balconies, the exterior of her building looks much like any other newly built urban apartment block.

Look a little closer, though, and a different story is told. The afternoon sun shines down on concrete walls adorned with spraypainted banners and stencilled slogans, the most revealing of which reads: "Ni gente sin casa, ni casas sin gente" (No people without houses, no houses without people). This is Corrala Utopía, the first in a growing network of previously vacant properties in the Andalusian capital of Seville now occupied by victims of Spain's ongoing economic crisis.

Like much of the rest of the country, Andalusia experienced a building boom at the turn of the millennium. Locals took jobs as bricklayers, painters, carpenters, contract cleaners, and property values rose. But in 2008 the global financial crash brought this cycle to an abrupt end, leaving huge numbers unemployed and, after punishing cuts to social welfare, struggling to keep roofs over their heads.

In 2010 Spanish banks foreclosed on more than 100,000 households. Macarena, the district of Seville in which Corrala Utopía stands, now has the highest eviction-rate in the city. Yet in Seville's greater metropolitan area alone an estimated 130,000 unsellable, unrentable homes are lying empty.

Toñi Rodriguez, 44, left her home voluntarily last year. "I was unable to pay my rent and was being taken to court. I didn't want to build up any more debt. I was living on the street, sleeping in my car. Back then the people from 15-M [the grassroots community activist group that rose to international prominence during the 2011 Indignados protests] were holding public assemblies in a square every day. A friend said that they might be able to help me," she explains.

Together they came up with a simple solution. "We began to talk about the possibility of taking over vacant buildings," she says. "We spent four months planning before we did anything and I was very afraid of what might happen to us. I didn't know whether we would be allowed to stay or if we would be arrested."

Eventually, a block of flats owned by the troubled construction company Maexpa was selected. With a group of women in similar situations, Rodriguez entered the building on 14 May 2012. Now a total of 36 families have made it their home, among them 40 children and several elderly people.

So far their future appears safe. Maexpa is now mired in bankruptcy proceedings. The current owner of the building, the Zaragoza-based bank Ibercaja, has entered into a series of negotiations with the corrala's inhabitants and local support is strong. However, life there remains challenging. Just two weeks after the community was established, its electricity was cut off and shortly after, despite an application for collective billing, its water supply disconnected. Now residents have to use a public standpipe.

In recent weeks four more corralas have been established in smaller towns in Andalusia and another in the city of Málaga, where the unemployment statistics and the number of empty houses are even higher than in Seville. These come in addition to the five communities that now exist in the city, ranging in size from five to 18 families. In late January Corrala Libertad, a community of seven apartments in the district of Triana, was granted legal rights to operate as a housing cooperative.

For the occupants of Corrala Utopía, who received an award from the Asociación Pro-Derechos Humana De Andalucia (Human Rights Association of Andalucia) in December last year, these developments are encouraging. Ana Lopez, 67, is one of the community's oldest members. She lives with her 71-year-old husband Pancho, a former flamenco dancer, who has in the last few years had three heart attacks, undergone a bypass operation and suffered complications related to asthma and diabetes. Despite his ill health, the couple were evicted from their home last year after falling into mortgage arrears. Before moving into the corrala they spent several weeks sleeping in the lobby of their former building.

"I have grandchildren," she says. "When I die I would like to be able to say to myself that they will have jobs, homes and a happy life. The corralas are important. They set an example to people who are struggling. They show that we can help ourselves and each other. I don't know what the future will hold for any of us, but one way or another I believe that this will be a successful fight. I have to, otherwise I wouldn't be able to sleep at night."

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a 16 mrt 2013, 23:02
Spanjaarden betogen tegen 'EU van de markten'

MADRID - In Madrid, Bilbao en Murcia zijn zaterdag tienduizenden Spanjaarden de straat op gegaan. Zij betoogden voor „een Europa van de mensen en tegen de EU van de markten”.

Tot de organisatoren behoorden tientallen organisaties, zoals vakbonden. Sprekers eisten „een nieuw sociaal en economisch model” en hekelden „het terrorisme” van de financiële markten, aldus Spaanse media. Een krant repte over een „oceaan van verontwaardiging”

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Spanish anarchists send Catholics explosive packages containing vibrators

Anticlerical Pro Sex Toys Group targets prominent Roman Catholics including archbishop of Pamplona

An anarchist group in Spain has been sending bombs to prominent Roman Catholics, hiding the explosives inside packages containing vibrators.

At least two such mini-bombs have been sent by a group that calls itself the Anticlerical Pro Sex Toys Group, according to Spain's state-owned EFE news agency. One device exploded at a postal sorting office, slightly injuring the woman who was handling the package.

"Please accept our apologies," the group said in an email apparently sent to an anarchist website at the beginning of last month. "Next time we won't fail."

The group targeted the Roman Catholic archbishop of Pamplona, Francisco Pérez, and the headteacher of a private school belonging to the ultra-conservative Legionnaires of Christ movement in Madrid.

The archbishop told EFE that he vaguely recalled police taking away a suspicious package containing powder. "We didn't give it much importance, but later it was said to be a bomb," he said.

Police reportedly believe the same group is behind a bomb packed inside a pressure cooker that was left near the public prosecutor's office in Madrid, but failed to explode.

Another rudimentary bomb found in Madrid's Almudena Cathedral, combining shrapnel, explosive powder and a camping gas canister, is also thought to have come from the same source.

The anarchists, who use other names such as the Artisans Club for New Uses for Coffee, claimed to have made a bomb out of an espresso coffee machine packed with gunpowder and shrapnel that was planted at a bank branch.

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Gewonden bij protest Madrid

Zeker 18 mensen zijn gisteren gewond geraakt bij protesten voor het Spaanse parlement in Madrid. Duizenden mensen voerden daar actie tegen een wetsvoorstel die demonstreren strafbaar maakt.

Actievoerders hielden spandoeken vast met leuzen als 'Vrijheid om te demonstreren' en 'Volkspartij, schande van Spanje'. Elf van de gewonden waren politieagenten.

Door de nieuwe wet, voorgesteld door de regerende Volkspartij, kunnen activisten worden beboet die deelnemen aan ongeoorloofde protesten, foto's publiceren van de politie of actievoeren bij publieke evenementen. Demonstranten die een politieagent beledigen, kunnen bijvoorbeeld een boete tot 30.000 euro krijgen.