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SPANISH RIOT POLICE beat protesters with batons and hauled some into vans earlier today as thousands rallied near parliament in Madrid to decry biting austerity cuts.
Police wearing helmets charged demonstrators and struck some protesters with batons after they tried to break down metal barriers protecting the lower house, the Congress of Deputies.
The clashes, shown live on national television, broke out in the evening as riot police backed by officers on horseback enforced a perimeter round the parliament building.
Officers surrounded police vans parked in the nearby Plaza de Neptuno square to keep at bay demonstrators who had rallied to vent their anger at the government’s handling of an economic crisis.
“Government, resign,” chanted many of the demonstrators before the violence broke out.
“Fewer police, more education,” cried others.
Many held their hands up in the air and jeered: “Hands up, this is a robbery”, an allusion to their complaint that the poor are paying for the crisis while bankers get bailed out.
The demonstration was organized by the “indignants” a popular movement against what its followers say is a political system that deprives Spaniards of a voice in the crisis.
(Photo: AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)
“They have robbed us of our democracy,” said 53-year-old shopkeeper Soledad Nunes from the northwestern region of Castile and Leon, wearing two red carnations and carrying a sign reading: “Do you really think you can fix this by folding your arms?”
“We have lost our freedom, our welfare system with the cuts to health and education,” she complained. I have two daughters and this year I had to pay a lot more for their studies.”
Nunes said business had slumped at her clothing shop, blaming the conservative Popular Party government’s austerity measures.
Aitor Llorens, a 27-year-old unemployed computer programmer, said the protests should be bigger.
“With everything affecting us we should be 100 times more people here. People are beginning to get resigned to it. They feel they can do nothing, that it does not matter which party is in power,” he said.
“The politicians are only interested in big companies and what the markets want.”
The economic crisis, blamed on the collapse of a speculation-driven real estate boom, has plunged Spain into recession, throwing millions out of work and many families into poverty.
But protesters say government policies, including pay cuts and sales tax rises to rein in the public deficit, hurt the poor unfairly.
They blame the crisis on corruption and financial and European political systems that they brand unjust.
The offering of a loan of up to €100bn by Spain’s eurozone partners to rescue the country’s stricken banks has fanned their anger.
Clashes have broken out on the fringes of several mass protests in Spain over recent months, with police firing rubber bullets and beating demonstrators with batons.
Spanish media reported that 1,300 police officers were deployed for Tuesday’s demonstration.
The “indignados” are also known as “May 15″, the date protests over the handling of the crisis broke out in 2011. That month activists camped for weeks in the central Puerta del Sol square.
Spanish are among the best protesrers in the world. They make the Irish look like a bunch of old ladies. We should take a leaf or 2 out of their book.
At least our old ladies got out on the streets here!
Guess we’re a lot worse than we think!
As long as the union bosses have been paid off they won’t bring people on to the streets here.
Its a common trait in English speaking nations that people don’t protest and its no surprise considering the sham that is supposed to be our media. Even in Canada the only people that protest are the French speaking ones. We have to deal with mass propaganda, misinformation and divide and conquer agendas not only from our media but from the rest of the English speaking media. The bigger the lie, the more people believe.
Just wonder what the Spanish and Greeks and Portegeuse think of us? Don’t think the term ‘The Fighting Irish’ applies to us anymore.
fluoride(97% prozac) in our water is a major factor in why we are so apathetic.we are targeted because for hundreds of years the irish had a rebelious spirit which needed to be stamped out.we are now a nation of passifists.it will be painful for people to admit that this has been done to us but its the truth.
Wrecking your own country proves what exactly?
But there’s no blue and red stripes in my water.
More the frightened Irish than fighting Irish
What did these protesters expect when they tried to pull down fences around the parliament?
Seems like there is no such thing as been allowed to protest … It’s okay for governments and banks rob you yet you can’t complain , ? ? bet the police wages in Spain weren’t cut
Protesting doesn’t have to mean rioting! Violence makes it harder for meaningful negotiations to take place as no one can be seen to give in to violence.
Reginald, Ive been watching the protests for a couple of hours now and the only violence i have seen has been by the police.
Rioting is a perfectly legitimate form of protest. Probably one of the earliest actually.
Violence doesn’t make it harder for meaningful negotiations to take place. If any meaningful negotiations were taking place in the first place then nobody would be protesting. Rioting highlights how important it is for meaningful negotiations to take place.
Decent live feed here, http://www.rtve.es/noticias/directo2/
Fair play to them, they know whats going on. The financial coup d’etat that is happening around the world by international bankers must not succeed.
If you charge at a man wearing riot gear and holding a baton you will likely get hit. It’s not a hard concept to grasp. If you use force it will be returned on you. If you don’t like it then stick to the protesting.
What if the man wearing the riot gear and holding a baton charges you? What do you think is a reasonable outcome there?
What makes you think these people aren’t aware of that concept?
Sean Beag maybe those ‘charging’ the police are angry and have decided enough is enough? Maybe more people in a lot more countries including Ireland should be doing the same. Or are you content to be ruled by what the markets want?
So it’s the polices fault that the country is broke? And I suppose those bank workers in Grecce who were burned alive had it coming to. why don’t you go kick in your neighbours door and when he asks why tell him you’re sick of the recession.
Protests and demonstrations are one thing, rioting and damaging are different.
Watching online now. Police beating men, women and children indiscriminately.
there have been many cases where police dressed as protesters actually start violence in order for the riot police to clamp down on the crowd & then beat people randomly.
Has there Graham?
Good man graham. You got any spare tinfoil helmets?
That’s cops for ya
To what end, Graham?
They’re called plain clothes cops lads.
I am spanish and I agree with graham. That is true!
That’s true Graham, I have seen it happen a few times.
Graham is correct in what he says. I live in barcelona, it is well known here, but not publicised in main streem media, that undercover police often get roit started to give the protesters a bad name.
I’m amazed at the amount of people commenting that think you can’t have a protest without violence.
Well said Sean, the police don’t HAVE to beat protesters, they could just let them protest.
Let me reply for you.
“They charged a barrier!!”
Maybe the protesters have decided that violence is required? I remember the protesters in the then USSR backed eastern block cutting fences and attacking the Berlin wall how all of us in the west cheered them on. Maybe time to cheer the Spanish, Portuguese and Greeks on at least they are voicing their anger.
Those indignados that “occupied” Sol were nothing but a bunch of dreadlocked wasters who sat around smoking weed. Sad for normal Spanish people that their protests are hi-jacked by wasters & hooligans masquerading as anarchists.
Half a million potheads. Ur talking crap now.
Derek, I’m talking about the 100 or so who stayed camped out in Sol.
lots of photos of those pot heads here:
Look at them all, drug fuelled dreadlock swinging wasters!
Graham
I think you’re drinking something harder than water. It’s affecting your intellect ….oops you don’t really have one…..and your spelling…..you pass fist you!
There are a number of issues in Spain that are likely to cause this to really blow up:
1) The unemployment rate that was 24.63% in July with a youth unemployment rate of 53% !! It just keeps rising and rising and there is almost no light at the end of the tunnel in sight.
The unemployment’s also not equally distributed. It’s terrifyingly high in the south of Spain (e.g. Andalusia 30.4%) and in some of the northern provinces, particularly the Basque country (11.9%).
Spanish unemployment benefit is contributory and drops you to a subsistence level after about 24 months max. It’s quite generous during the ‘benefit’ period (insured) but once that runs out you’re effectively cut off and dropped to a level of 426 Euro / month (figures I found for 2011) which, given the relatively high cost of living in most of Spain, would make life very uncomfortable.
Given that there are no employment prospects for most people in this situation, it’s going to lead to massive discontent. Some people are heading abroad – mostly to elsewhere in Europe or Latin America.
2) The banking crisis in Spain includes a situation where lots of customers of some of the smaller local banks (Cajas) discovered that their ‘savings’ were in reality shares in the bank and have lost huge amounts of money. Many of these people were vulnerable pensioners who were completely unaware of what they were getting themselves into! To say they’re angry would be a massive understatement.
3) A lot of the debts were run up by regional governments as Spain’s highly decentralised. There will be serious political problems as Madrid tries to reign in spending. There are also major regional disparities in terms of income levels, unemployment etc. It could end up like a mini-version of the arguments going on at EU level where one region will feel very aggrieved with paying for what they perceive as being the result of mismanagement/corruption/laziness in another region. I think this could lead to pretty serious separatist issues at a political level.
The Irish situation’s pretty dire, but I think Spain’s problems are far more in your face as the unemployment rates are really insanely high. At least we have some vague glimmer of hope in terms of fairly strong exports and a few other bright spots in the economy.
The 426€ after the unemployment runs out is not even for everyone. When my daughter’s unemployment money ended she was entitled to nothing at all, because she is under 35 and has no children to support. She was alright because she lived with me until she got another job almost a year later. Now my son has just become unemployed, after working for a year & half he will get 4 months unemployment and after that nothing. We live in Andalucía and jobs are like gold dust here.
here in spain they have chamged the law to make passive resistence a criminal offence, the pp habe said that todays protest is the same as 23F when on the 23rd of february 1982 the military tried to stage a.coup de`etat against the democratic goverment bit the difference is that this protest is against an illegal goverment that have broken and gone back on every electoral promise (only missing that Rajoy marries a man) while all the head honchos receive 2 or more salarys the president of madrid has just stepped down and will get 2 pensions while going back to her old civil servant position in the tourism ministry that she took a leave of absence thirty years.ago, here in spain there are over half a.million politcians that basically live of public.money with.there official car and driver, credit card for expenses and mobile phone all.paid.by the.tax payer, the.false.redundancies in andalusia where they put on the books of companies receiving money public money for redundancies friends and family members or castellon that has an airport with no airplanes or in valencia the opera house that costs 40million a year with only 15 operas per year and the director lives in 5 star hotel, spains is different
To make sure that a peaceful protest gets nasty, that way they justify the violence kettling etc.
If a peaceful protest is suddenly confronted with police in riot gear, what do they think is going to happen?
I amire the Spanish taking a stand, its better to get off your ass than take it in the ass. it may not sort out the problems but it does make it harder for those in power to continue bailing out banks that should have gone bust.
Spanish people dont admire us have a few friends there and we are a prostitute that punters dont pay in their eyes .
The Bankers can have this docile rock we are so numbed by the shock of of this takeover that we will accept what millions of other rational thinking people who had the same lives as us before they were robbed but somehow its different i think we will get what we deserve which is oppression.Id take a bashing in the morning for my loved ones and country now i realise why it was easy for the British to rule us .We all got fooled its ok to admit it why live in denial are we going to fight back or what or just wait around for someone else to do it and then laugh at them .Ireland is becoming so conservative now we just may aswell vote for the Tory Party .Yere broke were broke do we like getting rode to death if you do tell yourself that and see how you like it.
@reginald’s tower; police wages have been cut just the same as all civil servants (except politicians) and 15m was formed by many upstanding citizens. It isn’t as you make it out to be.
Violence starts with secret police attacking police. Then violent secret police help (a)normal police to arrest people. Spanish police are bastards, as spanish politicals.
See videos:
http://hablandorepublica.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/policias-secretas-encapuchados.html#.UGIl0nE09tI.twitter
Is democratic a country without a law to access to public data? People wants democracy, not corrupt bastard stolen to everything. Violence is a government strategy to avoid real problem: Spain is a dictatorship masquerading as democracy.
Eventually the hired jacked boots of Government will not be able to hold back the will of the People and there will be a lynching
Good to see the people voicing their anger. Any chance that the Irish will pick up the baton (pardon the pun)?
They certainly didn’t deserve this. http://rt.com/news/spain-protests-parliament-crisis-942/
I guess they are entitled to protest. But as a tourist if you were booking a weekend away you would think twice about Madrid. Be thankful that we dont have the protests here.
For those who don’t think police act as provocateurs check out the g20 in Toronto a few yrs ago , the protesters realized there were a few police officers with scarves over their faces trying to start a riot , so they confronted them . Fcukin cops trying to delegitimize the protest
Great to see, keep her lit Guardia Civil and the Policia Municipal….
Rational thinking people Wont.
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