Since November 2013 the Spanish government-Rajoy introduced a series of controversial repressive laws that even Franco’s fascism could not match. These new ‘public security laws’ are a threat to democracy and therefore they soon became known as ‘ley mordaza’ among the Spanish population: the gag-laws. These laws serve to criminalize and suppress all opposition against the Spanish status quo in a systematic order. In practice it means a prohibition on all kinds of civil protest and other democratic expressions. With this a dangerous precedent for a repressive policy is created, which slowly but surely will be introduced in all European member states.
Since the Spanish conservative-liberal government-Rajoy introduced these new laws, there has been huge resistance from the Spanish people against them. Plagued by the neoliberal austerity policy imposed by the Troika, the Spaniards have witnessed several turbulent years. Just like other south-European countries social unrest prevails in the country that was struck hard by the economic crisis. As a result the many different communities of Spain demand more autonomy. Separatism gets a new impulse, with which the existence of the Spanish State becomes endangered. As a reaction on this, the Partido Popular introduced its gag-laws, so that in practice a new totalitarian Spanish State was declared.
ley mordaza
The gag-laws exist of 21 new violations, with severe penalties for social protests and an almost total license for the police, in order to infringe on even the most banal civil rights. While activists are outlawed because they exercise their fundamental rights, the power of the State and the police apparatus is deemed absolute. The police may identify and arrest people without any reason and may search their houses, this while for example making pictures of cops misbehaving on demonstrations can count on a severe prosecution. The gag-laws undermine all liberties and civil rights the people have fought for, for many, many years, in the ultimate attempt to once again install a totalitarian dictatorship in Spain.
Although human rights organizations criticized these new undemocratic laws on a European level, there remains a deafening silence from the ivory towers in Brussels. This does not come as a surprise once we realize the European Union itself is an undemocratic project, in which the elected parliament merely plays a small supporting role. The real decisions are made behind closed doors by undemocratic institutions such as the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Court. So it seems this tendency towards a totalitarian dictatorship first was started by the hyenas in Brussels, who are busier with the interests of banks and multinational enterprises, than the peoples they claim to represent.
The situation in Spain does not stand on its own. In the whole of Europe national parliaments are busy introducing similar repressive laws to give their opposition as hard a time as possible. Although in most cases this did not yet reach Spanish forms, the future is grim. The disappearance of democracy in Europe should be filled up by a strengthening of self-organized communities on a local level. A change has to take place towards an economy based on solidarity and needs. Only this way the oppressed are able to resist capitalist oppression.
However, we are not afraid. We will never let ourselves be gagged. Resistance won’t let itself be forbidden! Our solidarity goes out to our Spanish brothers and sisters and their brave struggle against this new globalist fascism of the hyenas in Madrid and Brussels!
De Bokkenrijders 