Photograph via travelwayoflife via Flickr
The Spanish senate passed a bill in March 2015 that will have severe repercussions for the social movements of the country. The Citizen Safety Bill – to go into effect from July 1, 2015 – includes the controversial Ley Mordaza, or ‘Gag Law’. This law makes most forms of social protests illegal, with fines from 600 euros to 600,000 euros imposed for any breach of its terms. As well as limiting its citizens’ legal ability to protest, the ‘Gag Law’ will affect social media and the press. It will, in short, have a huge impact upon a body of people who have been protesting against their country’s austerity for years.
The Spanish people have been using protests for three years to amplify their voices against the right-wing Partido Popular (People’s Party) government. Demonstrations have risen and intensified over the party’s severe austerity measures and their conservative stance on abortion, which aims to limit abortion to cases of rape or serious health risk. In the wake of the 2008 financial crash, Spain was pushed into economic crisis, and the government’s response to this has led to a large number of protests – some violent – against the consequential austerity measures. The ‘Gag Law’, by limiting the number of acceptable forms of protest, therefore, takes steps to silence anti-austerity demonstrators – the indignados movement – by restricting their capacity to object.
Some of the most popular forms of protest favoured by the indignados movement will be penalised under the law. Protestors will be banned from assembling outside Congress and other government buildings – a rule that can cost dissenters up to 6,00,000 euros if broken. Permission must be sought from authorities before public gatherings can be arranged. The law also affects media coverage and social media activity. Filming or photographing police manoeuvres, and indeed publishing pictures of them will be considered a criminal offence. Online activity is seen to promote or publicise a political event – for example, by using hashtags – will also be illegal. As a huge and effective platform on which anti-austerity organisations can communicate their messages, censoring social media is a major step towards silencing the virtual narrative of dissent underlying the protestors’ real lives.
The ‘Gag Law’ has, of course, been met with outrage. Since the first mention of the bill in late 2014, thousands have joined in solidarity to show their discontent. Their perception of the bill as being harmful to citizens’ free speech has been shown by protestors’ use of gags: the Citizen Safety Bill has been reimagined and renamed to reflect the damaging nature of a legislation used to silence a country’s people. Recently, the world’s first virtual demonstration was staged against the bill in Madrid – a clear reaction to the government’s opposition to ‘flesh-and-blood’ protests. Thousands of holograms marched outside the Spanish parliamentary building on April 11 in a somewhat eerie demonstration organised by the group Holograms for Freedom.
The ‘Gag Law’, and by extension the Spanish government, will impose censorship on people’s virtual as well as their social lives. In a time where protests are the key tool available to social movements against austerity, the bill strongly impacts the Spanish people’s capacity to speak and drastically limits their power. It is the latest act of a right-wing government that drives towards austerity in the face of constant financial uncertainty.
Originally published on The Global Panorama.
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