Demonstraties in Europa: Aanzwellend protest in Spaanse steden

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Volgens de Catalaanse overheid zouden de demonstranten het plein slechts tijdelijk hebben moeten ontruimen.

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Op vrijdag 27 mei 2011 20:34 schreef JoaC het volgende:

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Definieer liegen

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Op vrijdag 27 mei 2011 18:31 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:
We gaan demonstreren tegen het feit dat we teveel geld uitgeven en te weinig belasting betalen! We gaan demonstreren tegen het feit dat buitenlandse bedrijven niet genoeg in ons land investeren omdat we te verdomd zijn de tering naar de nering te zetten! Yeah!

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Op vrijdag 27 mei 2011 19:47 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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The Rage of the 'Indignants' - A European Generation Takes to the Streets

For weeks, hundreds of young people have been camping out in central Madrid. And others across Europe have now begun following their example. Protests in Lisbon, Paris, Athens and elsewhere show that Europe's lost generation has finally found its voice.

Any real revolution in Paris has to include the storming of the Bastille. Which explains why 200 young demonstrators are sitting in the shade of the trees at Place de la Bastille on this Thursday evening, wondering how to go about staging such a revolution.

Their numbers had already swelled to more than 2,000 by the Sunday before, when they had occupied the entrance to the Bastille Opera and half the square. But then the police arrived with teargas and, since then, have kept strict watch over this symbolic site.

The protestors are trying to create a movement to rival the protests in Madrid and Lisbon. They want tens of thousands of young people to march in the streets of Paris, calling for "démocratie réelle," or real democracy. They believe that there is also potential for such large-scale protest in France, with youth unemployment at more than 20 percent, precarious working conditions and what feels like a constant state of crisis.

"Until now, our problems were always seen as individual problems," says Julien, a 22-year-old physics student who has joined a group called Actions. "You were told that if you couldn't find a job, it was your own fault. Perhaps we are now experiencing a change taking place, and that we are joining forces to form a pan-European movement against this system."

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Spain's 'indignant' protesters rise up against home repossessions


Movement that emerged after tens of thousands occupied Madrid's Puerta del Sol finds new target for its ire


Spain's peaceful "indignant" protest movement, which saw its image tarnished by outbursts of violence in Barcelona this week, has turned its attention to stopping banks from repossessing people's homes.

On Thursday morning a crowd gathered outside the home of 74-year-old Luis Domínguez, in the Madrid dormitory town of Parla, and prevented court officials from serving him with the order to leave his home immediately.

Domínguez, who walks with crutches and is being treated for a heart condition, said he would have been left on the street if protesters had not come to his aid.

"I only heard about them helping people to fight off the banks last night, and this was all organised in a few hours," he said in his apartment, shortly after protesters had seen off the court officials. "It is amazing that I am still here."

An appeal put out on Twitter overnight for a flash protest at his front door gathered enough people to prevent officials entering Domínguez's home.

On Wednesday a crowd of several hundred had also stopped police and court officials repossessing the home of a Lebanese immigrant family in the Madrid neighbourhood of Tetuan.

Plummeting house prices have left some Spanish property owners with negative equity and threaten to push more into the same position as Domínguez – who can no longer pay his mortgage.

"I remortgaged my home for ¤145,000 and I still have the document showing it was valued at ¤280,000 three years ago," he said. "Now the bank wants to take the apartment and make me pay them ¤90,000 on top."

At the height of Spain's decade-long property boom banks were handing out loans of up to 100% on the value of homes. But a crash that hit in 2008 has left more than 700,000 newly built homes unsold. Prices have fallen and banks have become major residential property owners, mostly because of unpaid loans by developers.

The number of house repossessions is swelling as unemployment hits 21% and eurozone interest rates rise. Now campaigners say about 278 homes a day are being repossessed.

"This man was too ill to be left without a home," said Eloi Morte, part of a Madrid-based anti-repossessions campaign born just two weeks ago. "Thanks to the protesters we are able to gather a lot of people in a very short period of time."

"Yesterday court officials and police simply turned around when they saw us in Tetuan," he said. "Today we were able to tell Parla officials that we had presented a writ in the court explaining that Luis was too ill to be thrown out without plans to rehouse him."

The movement to stop repossessions in Madrid has emerged from the Spanish capital's Latin American immigrant community. Immigrant labourers flocked to Spain during the construction boom but are now among those most likely to lose their homes. Campaigners want Spanish law changed so mortgage debts can be cleared simply by giving banks the keys to the property – as they are in the US.

A similar campaign against repossessions has been active in Barcelona for much longer, but the "indignant" movement that emerged after tens of thousands of protesters occupied Madrid's Puerta del Sol square last month has provided a new wave of activists ready to help out across the country.

The Madrid branch of the movement has denounced violence by some of those who blocked access to the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona on Wednesday as it voted through spending cuts affecting education and health. "We radically condemn any violence and especially what has happened at the Catalan parliament," it said. Objects were thrown at police, deputies were attacked with spray paint and a blind politician said protesters had threatened to take away his guide dog. Protesters claimed police provoked incidents.

"This was an unprecedented event in the 30 years since democracy was restored," Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper said in an editorial.

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Madrid protesters force police to retreat in clashes over treatment of immigrants

Residents in multicultural district of Lavapiés inspired by 'indignant' protest movement

An escalating confrontation between police and residents in a Madrid neighbourhood who are incensed by the treatment of immigrants has seen locals driving police patrols from their streets.

Inspired by the "indignant" protest movement that camped out in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square in May, residents in the multicultural neighbourhood of Lavapiés have reacted to recent attempts to detain immigrants by jeering and chanting at police.

Police have twice had to call for reinforcements in riot gear so that arresting officers can leave safely.

About 200 protesters gathered after an immigrant texted to say that police were asking African residents for identity documents. In another incident a crowd formed to drive police out after they arrested a Senegalese immigrant in the metro. Police said they had been chasing a drug trafficker on one occasion and, on the other, had been called to arrest a man who failed to pay for his metro ticket.

But neighbours say police frequently hassle immigrants for no reason at all. "This is a reaction to the police's habit of illegally rounding up immigrants and checking people's papers on grounds of race," said Olmo Calvo, a photographer at Diagonal, a leftwing bi-monthly newspaper based in Lavapiés.

Spain's interior ministry denied ordering police to stop Africans and Latin Americans, or launch special immigrant roundups. But Lavapiés residents say that is not true. "Police controls have increased. Sometimes you get three or four police cars pulling up and they start stopping anyone who looks like an immigrant – mostly Africans or Latin Americans," said 32-year-old As, one of a group of Senegalese men gathered outside the Baobab restaurant. "Even if you have proper residency papers, like me, they start asking whether you have a job and things like that, which have nothing to do with them," he added.

Lavapiés, where a web of narrow streets comes off the sloping Ribera de Curtidores that hosts Madrid's famous Rastro flea market, has long been a melting pot for immigration and a magnet for bohemians.

"The whole world is here," said Mercedes Solanilla, a 50-year-old doctor, who moved in five years ago. "That is what is so great about it."

Shopfront mosques and Western Union franchises vie for space with Chinese or Pakistani wholesale textile shops. Restaurants offering food from around the globe compete with traditional Spanish bars and newer, trendier art cafes. The "indignant" movement, which spread its popular assemblies into Madrid's barrios after raising camp from the Puerta del Sol last month, is firmly rooted here.

Some 150 people gathered in the Plaza Cabestreros over the weekend to debate, among other things, police behaviour. "For months we have looked on with horror and a sense of impotence at the police's racist roundups and ID checks," a working group on immigration reported. "We have decided to say, 'That's enough'."

"We've been tracking the police controls of immigrants for a long time," said Calvo at Diagonal. "Sometimes they simply pack up and go if they see us arrive with our cameras. Other times they threaten us, make us wipe our memory cards clean or think up reasons to arrest us." Fifty Madrid press photographers protested against police harassment in November after Diagonal photographer Edu Leon was arrested for a third time – and, for the third time, declared innocent by a judge.

The Lavapiés protests mimic those of another "indignant" activity: blocking access to houses being repossessed by banks. Police unions have complained that the neighbourhood threatens to become a no-go zone. "Officers have been seriously worried about whether they were in danger," Alfredo Perdiguero, a spokesman for the Federal Police Union told El País. "How on earth can we work if we can't demand ID cards from or detain people dealing in drugs or with criminal records?"

Some residents agree that police have a job to do. "You must bear in mind that there are drug dealers in the barrio too," said As.

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Spanish protest against spending cuts and changes to labour rights

Hundreds of thousands take to the streets in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia to demonstrate against Mariano Rajoy's reforms

Spain's conservative government faced its first mass protests on Sunday as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against austerity, spending cuts and radical changes to labour rights.

Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square filled for the first time since the "indignant" protesters camped there last May, as people gathered to protest against reforms introduced by prime minister Mariano Rajoy's government.

Protesters also marched through Valencia, capital of a heavily indebted and corruption-plagued region run by Rajoy's People's party, and Barcelona. Unions claimed more than half a million people demonstrated across the country.

The protests came two weeks after Rajoy, who became prime minister in December, introduced a labour decree making it easier for employers to fire workers and opening the door to wage cuts.

Rajoy's reforms are part of a programme designed to create jobs. Spain has the developed world's highest unemployment rate. But with the economy set to shrink this year by 1.7%, even the government admits the shocking 23% unemployment rate will rise in the short term.

Other reforms include a "golden rule" limiting future budget deficits and new rules forcing banks to write down the value of property they own and set aside money against bad real-estate debts left over from Spain's burst housing bubble.

Unions complained that labour reform would lead to a fresh surge in lay-offs. Rajoy himself has said he expects them to call a general strike soon.

"There has to be a general strike," said Alberto Carrillo, a teacher who protested in Madrid. "They've cut rights, but not said how they plan to create jobs."

"When we designed this reform we were thinking of the people who are out of work, who see no future," Rajoy told a party conference on Sunday.

His government has already cut ¤9bn in spending and hiked income tax as it struggles to meet an EU-set deficit target this year. It will have to find at least a further ¤30bn, however, to meet the current deficit target – though it is hoping that the EU can be persuaded to ease up on this year's target.

Austerity has already helped drive Spain's economy back into the second part of a double-dip recession, however, with the economy shrinking 0.3% in the last quarter.

"They're not looking to the future but to the next election with cuts dictated from Brussels," said Nacho Foche, a 27-year-old university researcher who was protesting in Madrid.

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Spanish police brutalize student protesters in Valencia

Conjuring up memories of Franco’s dictatorship, a peaceful student protest in Spain was violently disturbed by police assaults on harmless minors.

Cargas Policiales Lluis Vives Valencia 20F

A peaceful protest against budget cuts in education in Valencia, Spain on Tuesday ended in bloody police repression. Conjuring up memories of Franco’s brutal dictatorship, squads of riot police violently assaulted a group of some 300 students, arresting at least 26 and leaving scores injured. YouTube footage displayed a policeman forcefully pushing two girls onto a car, while photos emerged of young kids with bloodied faces surrounded by riot police.

La policía lanza a dos chicas contra un coche en Valencia

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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 donderdag 23 februari 2012 06:29 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Er is vrij verkeer van personen binnen Schengen. De mopperende Spanen kunnen ook een baan in het buitenland zoeken...

Europa als geheel is aan het zinken. Logisch; een onbetaalbaar links systeem waar men niet bereid is een stapje harder te lopen. Dat is niet alleen in Griekenland of Spanje zo, maar ook in Nederland en Duitsland.

Een kleinere overheid is de enige oplossing. Dat de luie Spanen dat niet trekken is begrijpelijk; het is immers lekkeder om je handje op te houden dan zelf voor welvaart en innovatie te zorgen...

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Op donderdag 23 februari 2012 15:24 schreef Strani het volgende:
alleen dit zeggen: Dat Spanjaarden lui zouden zijn is een grove misconceptie.

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Op donderdag 23 februari 2012 13:05 schreef Viajero het volgende:

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Trek je hoofd eens uit je reet man. Hoe links is het geven van honderden miljarden aan falende bankiers? Met je links/rechts gezeur, alsof dat iets gaat oplossen...

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Op donderdag 23 februari 2012 15:24 schreef Strani het volgende:

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Behalve dat je reageert op een post van een maand of negen oud, wil ik verder alleen dit zeggen: Dat Spanjaarden lui zouden zijn is een grove misconceptie. Met ruim 20% werkeloosheid is het duidelijk dat het probleem niet is dat ze niet willen werken, maar dat er geen banen zijn.

Verder sluit ik me (zoals altijd) volledig aan bij wat Viajero zegt.

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Op donderdag 23 februari 2012 23:10 schreef Strani het volgende:

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Het is enorm arrogant om te stellen dat iedereen die geen baan kan vinden meteen maar huis en haard moet verlaten. De meeste mensen hebben banen zodat ze een leven op kunnen bouwen MET hun familie. Als het aan jou ligt gaat vaderlief gewoon een paar jaar weg om in een vreemd land eenzaam te arbeiden zodat hij geld kan sturen naar het thuisfront.

Echt, jij moet eens verantwoordelijkheid krijgen voor een familie want je redeneert veel te veel vanuit de gedachte van de vrije single.

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Police and anti-austerity protesters clash in Barcelona – video

More than 30,000 people took to the streets of Barcelona on Wednesday to demonstrate against cuts in education spending. Cars were burned and windows of banks smashed when the protests turned violent

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Fighting breaks out in Barcelona as students protest over education cuts

Police and protesters fought in the streets of Barcelona on Wednesday as more than 30,000 people joined students in demonstrations against cuts in education spending.

Fires were lit in the streets, cars burned and bank windows smashed with missiles as the protests turned violent. At least one bank was broken into and police fired rubber bullets as roads in the city were blocked.

Baton-wielding riot police made several charges, pushing hundreds of demonstrators back into the main buildings of the University of Barcelona, not far from the central Plaça de Catalunya.

A small group of peaceful demonstrators marched on the Mobile World Congress a major international telecoms trade fair being held at the city's exhibition centre, blocking a nearby main road.

Masked protesters also attacked a television cameraman as authorities suggested the student protests had been infiltrated by troublemakers. "This gives an image of students and the university world that is simply not real," said Antoni Castellà, the director of universities for the Catalan regional government.

Early reports were of a handful of arrests and nine injuries.

"We did not expect this degree of repression," said Pau Brosons, a student, after police hit protesters with truncheons. "Nobody broke anything until they charged."

Students were due to assemble again on Wednesday night to decide whether to continue their protests.

More peaceful demonstrations were held in several Spanish cities, with students and schoolchildren to the fore. Many came out in support of their counterparts in Valencia after heavy policing of recent demonstrations there added fuel to the protest movement.

The growing unrest comes as prime minister Mariano Rajoy tries to persuade the European commission to relent on a deficit target that would see Spain asked to adjust its budget by some ¤45bn (£37bn) this year.

"We will bring the deficit down as much as we can," said Rajoy, in the first suggestion that Spain believed it would be unable to reduce the deficit to the 4.4% of GDP currently expected.

Officials in Brussels said they first wanted to know exactly why Spain's deficit, which was meant to be 6% of GDP in 2011, had come out at 8.5%. The government has pinned the blame on regional administrations, which are in charge of providing education and health services across the country.

Unions are reportedly planning a general strike, scheduled for 29 March, to protest against reforms to Spain's labour laws. The country's economy is already falling back into recession as austerity measures take effect. Unemployment is at 23% and rising.

"I ask Spaniards to understand that things are not easy, that we will have to make an effort, but that I am sure we will get out of this situation," said Rajoy.

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Spain's general strike hits transport system - video

A 24-hour general strike begins in Spain ahead of prime minister Mariano Rajoy's announcement of a new austerity budget. It is predicted he will announce up to ¤40bn (£33.45bn) of spending cuts and taxes. Spain has one of the highest levels of unemployment in the eurozone, the number of jobless reaching 5 million in January