Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 75

Social Justice Vol. 46, Nos. 2–3 75

The Repression of Protest in Spain after 15-M: The Development of the Gag Law

Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda*

The cycle of protests that began in Spain with the 15-M movement (named after the date of its inaugural event on May 15, 2011) inmediately gave rise to academic analyses that have

continued to relate this phenomenon of movimentismo to the government’s mishandling of the economic crisis of 2008 and the resultant outbreak of a deep political crisis, a true “democratic crisis” in which social movements have played a key role (Fernández García & Petithomme 2015). This article sets out from the above points, but it also analyzes a more specific aspect of the protest cycle that, in spite of forming an essential part of that cycle, has not often been addressed by the academic literature: the repression of protest, as well the interaction of this repression with the development of the social movement itself.

The Context of Economic and Political Crisis in Spain in 2008–2011

The close connection between the 15-M movement and other phenomena of social protest on the one hand, and the context of economic crisis and neoliberal policies on the other, was formulated from the outset in pamphlets and essays written by analysts and think tanks affiliated with the movement * Pedro Oliver (e-mail: pedro.oliver@uclm.es) has a PhD in history from the University of the Basque Country (UPV), Spain, and is currently a Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Spain. In his publications he has explored topics such as the social history of punitive institutions (especially the contemporary prison and the death penalty) and new social movements. He coordinates the Study Group on the History of Prison and Punitive Institutions (GEHPIP) (http://historiadelaprision.wordpress.com/). He is the author of books such as Cárcel y sociedad represora (UPV 2001) and La pena de muerte en España (Síntesis 2008). He coordinated the book Burorrepresión (Bomarzo 2013) and is coauthor of the book Protesta democrática y democracia antiprotesta (Pamiela 2015). Jesús-Carlos Urda (e-mail: jesuscarlosurdalozano@gmail.com) is a PhD student in history at UCLM, Spain, and a substitute high school teacher. His lines of research include the history of banditry and punishment. His most important works are, in coauthorship with Professor Óscar Bascuñán-Añover, the article “The Place of the Bandit in Rural Conflict: A Historiographical Approach from the Work of Eric Hobsbawm” (Vínculos de Historia 2016, 5) and, in coauthorship with Professor Pedro Oliver Olmo, the book Protesta democrática y democracia antiprotesta (Pamiela 2015).

76 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

itself, such as the Observatorio Metropolitano de Madrid (2011).The global economic crisis, which began in 2008 and made it much more

difficult to obtain bank loans, made its appearance in Spain with the bursting of the housing bubble (Díez 2013). Construction firms went bankrupt due to the contraction in demand for houses. As a result, Spanish banks seized the collateral (houses and land) of such enterprises but found that they were unable to recover even half of the economic investment they had made in the days of the real estate boom. The banks, in turn, further restricted credit and thus aggravated the economic crisis.

From the start of the 2000s to the year 2008, Spain’s construction indus-try accounted for half of direct employment and almost 40 percent of the country’s GDP (Chastagnaret 2013, 208). Conversely, in the first quarter of 2009, this sector was responsible for increasing unemployment by nearly 800,000. During this period of time, the government implemented a banking bailout and new austerity-based policies, and important cases of political corruption came to light (Chastagnaret 2013, 222; Díez 2013). Reforms to the labor market, especially those implemented by the People’s Party (PP) government in 2012 in the context of European Union austerity policies, gave rise to trade union and civic protests. Numerous economic analysts have criticized these reforms, questioning their effectiveness in the fight against the disproportionate rise in unemployment (Furió Blasco et al. 2015).

The economic crisis and the government’s incompetence in solving it led Spaniards to rebel, targeting in particular three features of the way po-litical power has been exercised in Spain since the Franco regime, namely, hyperleadership, inbreeding in political parties, and opaque and irrespon-sible economic management (Burns Marañón 2015). Through the internet, Spaniards had learned about the disgust felt for politicians and subsequent widespread protests in Iceland in 2009 and in Tunisia and Egypt in January 2011, which brought about changes in the form of increased democratization and new civic cultures (Castells 2012, 20–22, 34, 54, 113–15). Inspired by these examples, on the night of May 15, 2011, some dozens of demonstra-tors camped in the Puerta del Sol public square in Madrid with the aim of promoting a real representative democracy. In the following days, there were similar demonstrations in 800 cities around the world.

The PP Government and the Atmosphere of Protest

The 15-M movement marked the beginning of a new protest cycle in Spain, just before local elections were held on May 22, 2011. Later that same year,

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 77

the conservative PP achieved the biggest landslide victory in national elec-tions in the history of democracy in Spain.

Analysts and activists agree that the foundations of 15-M—that is, the factors behind its emergence and evolution—are to be found in the context of the economic and political crisis of the time and the new structure of information sharing in modern society. The consequences of the crisis and the potential of online information sharing enabled protests to spread from the internet onto the streets. It soon became clear that the traditional political organizations (parties, trade unions, etc.) had not only failed to satisfy the population; they had outraged it.1 Thus, in the streets and public squares, “there was a change in perception from one of isolation to one of perhaps being in the majority” (Domènech Sampere 2014, 14; Martín García 2013).

Soon after, in addition to strengthening the repression of protests with available legal instruments, the PP proposed to amend the penal code and pass a new public safety act. Initially, the conservative government led by Mariano Rajoy tried to explain that the new public safety law was not due to the climate of unrest and protest but was really a coincidental legal adjustment—a mere consequence of penal code reform. In this proposed reform, so-called faltas (minor offenses like threats, reckless driving result-ing in injury, thefts of less than €400, vandalism, public disorder, etc., all of which were punished lightly) would largely be replaced by infractions, punishable by administrative procedures. Very few people accepted this explanation, however. Therefore, the next justification put forward by the government was the need to adapt legal standards to the new reality—in official terms—of public disorder and riots in the streets.

What new reality is being referred to here? Undoubtedly, there was a new situation at hand, which can be viewed as the intersection of the two dynamics mentioned above: mobilization and the resulting repression, tak-ing place in a context of economic crisis and the partisan political struggle over government measures involving austerity and cutbacks to benefits and services.2 The vast majority of protests were peaceful, which explains why they generally received public support and why only 0.2 percent of the Spanish population expressed concern about the disruption of public order (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas 2013).

In the few months between 15-M and the electoral victory of the PP in late 2011, there were episodes of civil disobedience with profound social and political significance. During these months, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) government, with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as prime minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as interior minister, and María Dolores

78 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

Carrión Martín as government delegate in Madrid, had demonstrated unusual zeal in the application—by way of administrative fines—of the standing public safety act. This legislation had been in force since 1992, when it was introduced by Interior Minister José Luis Corcuera under Felipe González’s socialist government. It became known as the Corcuera law or the kick-down-the-door law.3

In May 2011, after the counterproductive outcome of the forced evic-tion of the first 15-M camps, the government ceased trying to restrain and repress these demonstrations, choosing instead to leave the protesters alone. Apparently, Interior Minister Rubalcaba had weighed the political costs and benefits of nonenforcement of the law as a response (or rather a nonresponse) to a rapidly developing phenomenon manifesting itself as peaceful protest, without disturbing the public peace or clashing with the forces of law and order. The protesters’ determination to remain in public space and disobey eviction orders is reminiscent of what happened during the Arab Spring or even earlier in Iceland (Domènech Sampere 2014, 76; Júlíusson & Helgason 2013; Konak & Özgür Dönmez 2015, 133–34; Romanos 2013). Those camped in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol did not inform the government of their immediate intentions nor did they obey the autorithies’ instructions; their occupation was soon replicated in Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona and public squares in several Spanish cities.

Later that same year, the PP knew that it was going to win the general election against what was perceived as a moribund government that had allowed the birth of the Indignados (outraged people) movement. That per-ception would shape the PP’s political strategy following its achievement of an absolute majority. From the perspective of the PP, the image of protesters camped in the streets could not be allowed to recur. The prolonged presence of the Indignados in the streets and squares, exercising the right of assembly without any impediment or control and openly bordering on civil disobedi-ence, abruptly reshaped the dynamics of Spanish politics. The experience in the streets undoubtedly influenced the evolution of the 15-M movement, which redefined its own repertoire and later inspired many other forms of expression of social protest such as las mareas (tides),4 as well as the main trade unions, which were often harshly dismissed by the new networked social movements, and all political parties, which were surprised by the enormous social support shown for the 15-M activists in public opinion polls alongside a growing, profound disaffection with political methods. It also left a mark on the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 79

was already resigned to losing power, and, of course, on Mariano Rajoy’s new government.

Deeply Controversial Repression

The 15-M movement inspired some of the most significant mobilizations against the PP in its implementation of austerity policies and the privatiza-tion of public resources, including in particular the so-called tides of citizens in Madrid, against whom the national and municipal authorities reacted violently (Sánchez 2013). The confluence of these human tides resulted in the Marea Ciudadana demonstration on February 23, 2013 (23-F), that was severely criticized by government spokesperson Salvador Victoria. He described citizens who took to the streets to defend public services and to protest payment of the debt and repression, among other things, as “enemies of freedom” and as putschists who were damaging Spain’s image (Diariocrítico 2013). In reality, this demonstration included various groups with very different goals: the white tide was protesting against cuts in public health by the Spanish government (Amnesty International 2014, 10); the green tide, against austerity measures in public education; the red tide, against unemployment (Navarro 2013); the orange tide, for social services and full enforcement of the dependency law; the violet tide, for gender equality and against abortion reform; the black tide, in support of the miners; and the yellow tide, against charging to borrow books from libraries, etc.5

On March 22, 2014 (22-M), the March for Dignity was held to protest similar issues in Madrid. Its motto was “bread, work, shelter, and dignity,” and its manifesto listed unemployment, eviction, debt, curtailing of rights, and the patriarchy as attacks on dignity (Marchas de la Dignidad 2015). The media, the police, and the government heavily criticized this demon-stration. El País, for instance, published the claim that 50,000 demonstra-tors had taken part, but this number was strongly contested by the social movements involved (Moreno 2014). At the end of the march, the police claimed that a large number of their officers (between 11 and 67) had been injured and that they had been attacked with “astonishing savagery” by a group of protesters (Moreno 2014, Uzal & Giménez 2014). In the Madrid Assembly, the president of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Ignacio González, said that the March for Dignity had adopted ideas from Golden Dawn, the Greek neo-Nazi party (Durán 2014; Olmo & Gil 2015; Stop Represión Rioja 2013, 11).

80 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

Th e data show that the state responded strongly and harshly to the cycle

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 81

of mobilizations started by 15-M—principally via restrictions on the right to demonstrate and fines. According to the Comisión Legal Sol (Sol Legal Committee, a working group created during the 15-M encampments in Table 1. Two-year balance (2011–2012) of bureau-repression against 15-M Madrid

Madrid), the police imposed up to 962 administrative sanctions on protesters during 2011 and 2012—a truly astronomical number compared to previous years (Oliver Olmo 2013, 21).

In 2014, Amnesty International (2014) issued a report with the self-explanatory title Spain: The Right to Protest under Threat. The report claimed that the authorities were imposing increasing restrictions on peaceful dem-onstrators by punishing them indiscriminately with widespread administra-tive fines. The majority of protests in Spain were peaceful, but police often intervened by employing violence against demonstrators and anyone else in the vicinity, including journalists. They made use of antiriot gear, although the use of force was unnecessary and excessive in such situations. Amnesty International (ibid.) posits that both the police interventions and the fines were aimed at breaking up the protests and imposing self-censorship on the expression of critical views, even though this violates human rights (Maroto Calatayud 2013a, 61–62).6

Citizens were punished for attending demonstrations that the authori-ties had not been previously notified about, as the constitutional right to demonstrate is subject to notification of the event being given to the political authorities 10 days prior to the demonstration. In formal terms, giving prior notice is not an application for authorization, but there are those who perceive it as such. The organizers of some demonstrations simply published their intentions online and dispensed with the formalities. The result was that in Madrid in 2012, permission was refused for 52 demonstrations, and about 374 demonstrations or meetings—or as many as 621 according to some sources (Martín García 2013, 72)—took place without prior notification being given to the authorities. Between May 12 and 15, 2012, proceedings were initiated against more than 314 people for violations of the so-called Corcuera law. Despite declarations made by the Government Delegation in Madrid that only the promoters or organizers of unreported events would receive fines, official documents show that any participant in the meetings could also be fined. For example, in Azuqueca de Henares (Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha), one health worker was fined under the public safety law for participating in an unauthorized demonstration, or so it was claimed in the Guardia Civil ’s report on the matter.7 She contacted Amnesty In-ternational and told them that the protest had been a spontaneous action

82 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

against the visit of a Health Ministry consultant. She later received a letter with a €600 fine, but the reason given had changed. She was now being punished for disturbing the peace, which also falls under the public safety act.

The purpose of giving prior notification of demonstrations is to ensure safety. However, hardly any demonstrations were canceled for reasons of public order. In Madrid in 2012, only two demonstrations were denied per-mission for this reason. This suggests that, in reality, giving prior notification of a demonstration serves as an application for authorization. The police themselves in their reports label demonstrations or meetings as unauthor-ized, employing the same lexicon in sanction notices. Disturbing the peace is a common pretext for imposing administrative and criminal punishment on a protester in the absence of genuine reasons.8 Disturbing the peace can apply when police orders are disobeyed, irrespective of whether or not any true disturbance occurs. As Amnesty Intnernational (2014, 17) describes:

With regard to the limitations that may be imposed on the right to demonstrate, the Constitutional Court has stated that no restrictions can be absolute, nor may they obstruct the fundamental right beyond reasonable measure, as the importance of the fundamental right re-stricts the scope of the limiting regulations that may be placed upon it. The Court has also repeatedly maintained that freedom of expression and information covers not only inoffensive or immaterial criticism but also that which could annoy or offend, especially when related to someone in public office.

Just as the imposition of fines was arbitrary, so too was the amount that was levied: people sanctioned for identical activities had to pay different fines, and people who had not attended any demonstration at all were also fined (Bravo 2014, Noticias de Navarra 2014). The experience of people punished outside of the actual protests reflects another form of police abuse: that of added injury or harm upon detention or arrest. This is especially common in the case of women, who often suffered sexist insults when detained by police (Amnesty International 2014, 44). There is a well-publicized video showing Laura Díaz, who had not participated in the demonstration, be-ing grabbed by a police officer and held against a wall while he whispered in her ear (Sánchez 2012). A schoolgirl who participated in the Primavera Valenciana (Valencian Spring) was admonished by an officer: “You don’t even have the body of a whore!” (El Mundo 2012). A woman participating in the Marcha Ciudadana in Madrid on February 23, 2013, was forced to listen to

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 83

taunts such as “Come on, Snow White,” “You’re so soft,” and “What do you want? Water or sex?” during her detention (Amnesty International 2014, 45).

Police action involving misogynist treatment is common (paseoex-tremadura 2013). However, investigations into human rights violations committed by police officers are rare (Amnesty International 2014, 49). To report this type of behavior and other police excesses, it is necessary to identify the aggressor, which is difficult. According to Organic Law 2/1986, Royal Decree 1484/1987, and Instruction 13/2007 of the Secretary of State for Security, the police and riot police must carry identification. However, in reality they do not wear name badges, as was reported to the Ministry of the Interior on May 11, 2012 (Comisión Legal Sol 2012).

Amnesty International (2014) notes that the lack of punitive action against unidentified officers is an endorsement of impunity. This is particu-larly evident in the case of those attacked by the police with excessive force during their eviction from Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona on May 27, 2011, after which 55 people with medical reports of injuries brought a complaint against the Catalan police for assault while dispersing them from the plaza (Amnesty International 2014, 56). The judge dismissed the complaint with vague excuses, including the argument that the officers who appeared in the images provided could not be identified. The subsequent appeal to the Provincial Court was also unsuccessful. Only one officer was charged with misdemeanors because the individual plantiff recognized him.

The Spanish Police Trade Union (SIPE) and United Police Trade Union (SUP) have spoken out against the bad practices that the officers were ordered to carry out. Could it be that the government’s strategy consisted of shielding officers from allegations of abuse in exchange for continuing their repressive behavior? Could it be that the government considers complaints against the police as proof that the protest was repressed with sufficient severity? Amnesty International (2014, 56) reports that judges and prosecutors gave more credence to police statements than to the testimony of the plaintiffs. Under the public safety law adopted in 2015, a police report is presumed to be truthful. A similar measure has existed since the year of the Corcuera law’s adoption: Law 30/1992 of November 26 on the Legal Regime of Pub-lic Administrations and the Common Administrative Procedure, in which Article 137 awards “probative value” to “(the) facts established by officials who are recognised as having a status of authority.”9 This creates a need for the person accused to prove their innocence: a situation that reverses the burden of proof (Stop Represión Rioja 2014, 14).

84 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

In addition, the government imposed administrative fines without restraint. Peaceful demonstrators were identified by police, who used the excuses of routine work or safety, only to then receive a letter at home informing them that disciplinary proceedings had been initiated against them (Comisión Legal Sol 2014, [4]). This has become known as bureau-repression, soft repression, or low-intensity repression (Oliver Olmo 2013; Oliver Olmo & Urda Lozano 2015a, 2015b). In practice, though, it seems there is little that is soft about it, as the fines take up the dissidents’ finances, time, and energy (Martín García 2013, 78, 80). Hence, since 2012 at least, one of the central ideas of bureau-repression needs to be reconsidered: its infrarepressive nature, its low punitive intensity.

Fines are an individual form of repression and many people find it impos-sible to pay them in a time of crisis. Additionally, a fine continues to affect one’s household long after the demonstration has taken place, especially when the defendant can no longer count on the presence of social support (Comisión Legal Sol 2014, [4, 7]).10 The groups participanting in the Comisión Legal Sol have developed practices of burorresistencia (bureau-resistance) against bureau-repression, on the basis of an antirepressive concept with a clear proactive intention, which at the same time promotes civil disobedi-ence (Oliver Olmo & Urda Lozano 2015b).

An Ad Hoc Antiprotest Law?

In 2012, when the PP government announced the reform of the 1995 penal code, the atmosphere of social indignation and protest in Spain, described above and inspired by 15-M, became more intense.11 Table 2 summarizes the sequence of events, some of which took place in the period between the government’s clear intention to reform the penal code, starting from 2012, and its passing into law, which happened in 2015.

News of the plans to reform the penal code date from less than a year after Mariano Rajoy arrived in Moncloa Palace (the residence of the Spanish prime minister). On September 14, 2012, Reuters reported on the meeting of the Council of Ministers that took place that very day (Reuters 2012). At that meeting, the outlines were drawn for a reform of the penal code with two clear objectives: to increase penalties and to introduce life impris-onment. The same day, El País also reported on the meeting, but the focus was shifted away from the increased penalties toward the introduction of the new life imprisonment penalty (under the euphemism of “reviewable permanent imprisonment”) (Gutiérrez Calvo 2012). On September 19, El

Repression in Spain after 15-M: Th e Gag Law 85

País referred to the reform, principally highlighting the “elimination” of minor off enses, when the new law simply relabeled them as administrative

penalties or minor crimes (Lera 2012).Th e process of passing the draft Organic Law, amending Law 10/1995

of November 23 on the Penal Code, began on September 24, 2013. King

Table 2. Cycle of protest and repression after 15-MSource: Stop Represión Rioja (2013, 21).

Philip VI approved it as a full Organic Law and did the same with the PP’s public safety law on the same day: March 30, 2015.12 It should be explained that the Spanish king has the constitutional duty to approve all the laws that have been passed by the Cortes (Spanish Parliament).13 Th e king does not have the right of veto, and his legislative input is free of political alignment.

We will now examine the details of the law’s evolution with regard to protest. It should be recalled that nine days elapsed between news spreading about the government’s intention to reform the penal code and the 2012 25-S demonstration. A longer period of time separated the reform from what became known as the Primavera Valenciana (Valencian Spring). Un-heated classrooms sparked student protests in the city of Valencia between February 15 and March 1, 2012 (Albero-Gabriel 2014, 254; Villar Aguilés & Pecourt Gracia 2014, 612, 616). Protests against education cuts had occurred in several educational institutions in the capital of the region of Valencia weeks before these dates. Students from Lluis Vives High School,

86 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

for instance, took the creative iniative of demonstrating their rejection of austerity policies in the street. They stopped traffic on February 13 and again on February 15, when a confrontation took place between the students and the police trying to reopen the road. The police violently evicted the students from the road, and this police assault garnered publicity for the protest on social networks. The climate of protest became widespread. Ten students were put on trial for minor offenses in September 2013, but this was ulti-mately suspended because they themselves lodged a complaint against the police who had taken them to court (Levante-El Mercantil Valenciano 2013). Another trial of a protesting student, who was a minor, took place in June 2012 and ended with the judge issuing the defendant a simple warning and even praising her parents because, according to the judge, she was an example to all citizens (Simón 2012).

On October 9, 2012, it was already public knowledge that the 1992 Or-ganic Law of Public Safety was to be modified, as reported by ABC (2012). Some days later, the government announced that it was looking into a measure that would eventually be included in the public safety act, although it was partly modified (eldiario.es & Europa Press 2012): the prohibition on filming officers would be changed to a prohibition on unauthorized use of images and data of members of the Security Forces.

Many have agreed that both the penal code and the PP’s new public safety law were conceived on the basis of the experience of the protests and demonstrations. We need only look at the predominance of administrative powers exercised by the government, which reflects a loss of judicial guar-antees for the accused and sounds a warning about administrative discretion (Lara Bonilla & Acebal Monfort 2014, 3–5). Furthermore, in understanding just how defenseless ordinary citizens have become in this situation, it is important to note that in Article 550 of the new penal code, the adjective “active” has been removed as a characteristic of the resistance considered an offense against authority, which suggests that minor acts of disobedience and passive resistance will also be penalized (Amnesty International 2014, 60).

However, the government’s implementation of the public safety law has not been entirely effective when using it to restrict rights or to fine pro-testers. Besides social movements’ lawyers (who have also sometimes been criminalized and even assaulted), it is judges who have occasionally emerged as defenders of the protesters, making use of the legislation in force. The Spanish Constitutional Court, for instance, agrees with the European Court of Human Rights on the definition of the right to freedom of assembly (Amnesty International 2014, 15). In the past, the Constitutional Court

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 87

(1995) recognized that “for many social groups, this right, in practice, is one of the few means they have of being able to publicly express their ideas and demands.” This has served as a basis for subsequent judgments on the matter (Constitutional Court 2009). In another well-known case, the investigating judge of 25-S closed the case on October 4, 2012, because there was no evidence of “crimes against the High Institutions of the State,” as alleged by the general director of the police (Amnesty International 2014, 26–27). The judge simply read the minutes of the diario de sesiones (record of ses-sions) and found that the workings of the lower house of parliament had not been affected during the Rodea el Congreso demonstration, which was held in front of the Congress of Deputies building—symbolically representative of national sovereignty—on September 25, 2012, with the aim of bringing about the resignation of the government and ending austerity policies.

All the indications are that, after finding that the application of the Corcuera law was being hampered by judicial controls that challenged the government’s bureau-repressive fines and restrictions on rights of expression, the PP saw the need to overhaul the legislation. Furthermore, the govern-ment had to take account of the new methods and resources employed by protesters. The measure was denounced in such terms by the entire parlia-mentary spectrum except for the PP.

In this way, the new public safety law eventually became known as the gag law. From its early days, it was ironically referred to using this metaphor as a condemnation of its antidemocratic nature. Later, the public safety law was termed the “law for civic unrest” (Trevín Lombán 2015), and it has received many more names, such as the “kick-in-the-teeth-for-democracy law” (La Información 2013). The term gag law is commonplace in Latin America to refer to regulations that undermine press freedoms, and the concept has now permeated Spanish society and become a convention when speaking of the 2015 public safety law (Waisbord 2012, 19).14 Other names such as the “law of fear” or even the “Fernández law” (after the interior minister of the PP government) have had less impact (Noticias Cuatro 2013). What really matters, however, is that as soon as the draft bill was made public, the new public safety law was perceived as an antiprotest law.

In drafting its bill, the PP took account of the most characteristic ex-amples of protest. By looking at the 15-M camps, the actions taken against evictions, and many others, we can see that the government was introducing punitive measures that were clearly identifiable as anti-15-M, anti-25-S, anti-PAH,15 antipicketing, and so on: in other words, ad hoc sanctions. It is useful to break the law down in order to answer the question posed

88 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos UrdaTa

ble 3

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Repression in Spain after 15-M: Th e Gag Law 89

i Th i

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90 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

above: can an antiprotest law be considered ad hoc? Table 3 below shows the types of fines for violations and how they relate to what can be defined as typical protests—that is, highly visible collective actions or those which can easily be associated with certain social movements. Note that the list of actions likely to be sanctioned by the public safety law is, to a large extent, common to many social protest movements.

Beyond the arguments supporting the actions of the social movements, the new public safety law, in addition to the coinciding penal code reform and the new antiterrorism legislation,16 was largely rejected on the grounds of its violation of fundamental rights. In addition to institutional barriers that the PP’s public safety law has had to overcome at the state level (in-cluding, notably, objections from the General Council of the Judiciary and the Prosecutorial Council, as well as criticism from associations such as the International Federation of Human Rights [Del Campo 2015, Gómez Cuadrado 2014]), there has been no shortage of objections raised against the law abroad, from both the media and international organizations. In-ternational media such as The Guardian, Die Tageszeitung (TAZ), and Der Spiegel have remarked on the authoritarian tendencies of the PP government embodied in the public safety law (Benítez 2013), and an editorial in The New York Times (2015) called it an “ominous” law.

Intergovernmental human rights organizations were also highly critical of these developments, including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) (particularly concerning the government reac-tion to the 22-M’s Marches for Dignity in 2014) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its second Universal Periodic Review in January 2015.

The OSCE chose the 22-M’s Marches for Dignity of 2014 as a case study for a report on the situation of the rights of expression and assembly in Spain (OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights 2014, 79, 98). Six OSCE observers concentrated on this single event to issue their conclusions on the entire country (Velasco 2014). The report was published at the end of 2014 and was critical of the situation observed (see also Olmo & Gil 2015). It is worth noting the report’s referral to the arbitrary use of force by the police: “Although Spanish law refers to necessity and proportionality, the use of force in Spain is not specifically regulated” (OSCE ODIHR 2014, 78).

The OHCHR’s second Universal Periodic Review of Spain in 2015 showed the country’s slippage in the field of human rights in comparison to the results obtained in the first UPR, which was produced in 2010 (Asociación

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 91

Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía 2015). Among various controversial issues (including limitation of universal justice, neglect of the demands of the victims of the Franco regime, and police abuses), the report also listed the public safety law as a factor.

The European Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the International Service for Human Rights expressed concern about the draft of the new public safety law (UN Human Rights Council 2015a, 7, 12–14). The Czech Republic, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom submitted advance questions to Spain in relation to the law (UNHRC 2015b). The United Kingdom gave voice to many of the suspicions in the public arena, both in Spain and internationally, with its question regard-ing the measures the Spanish government would take to ensure that the new public safety law and fines for minor disturbances would not be used against people demonstrating and protesting legitimately. Finally, five UN rapporteurs urged Spain to guarantee fundamental rights and civil liberties in its legislation (El Huffington Post 2015, Postdigital 2015).

What was already a veritable clamor within Spanish society became an international vox populi. A survey by Metroscopia for the NGO Avaaz.org, conducted before the law was passed, left no doubt: 82 percent of respon-dents rejected the public safety act, with 42 percent asking that the text be amended and 40 percent that it be withdrawn immediately (El País 2014). The new public safety law approved by the PP in March 2015, in spite of the protest by all other political groups in the parliament, was colloquially called the gag law because it was perceived as a true ad hoc law against protest.

AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by the Consejería de Educación, Cultura y De-portes of the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha under Grant POII-2014-005-A; the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under Grant HAR2013-40621-P; and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER).

NOTES

1. We can indicate the first three books on the subject, all published in May–June 2011: Antentas 2011, Cabal 2011, and Taibo 2011. Since then, various articles on 15-M have been published in English and provide incisive analysis of the phenomenon: Diez García 2014, Gámez Fuentes 2015, Maroto Calatayud 2013b, Martin 2013, Martín García 2014, Peña-López, Congosto & Aragón 2014, and Romanos 2013.

2. There has been an abundance of literature published in Spain dealing with the

92 Pedro Oliver and Jesús-Carlos Urda

repression of the cycle of demonstrations started by 15-M: Amnesty International 2014; Castells 2012; Cruells & Ibarra 2013; Cruz 2015; Legal Sol 2014; Oliver Olmo 2013; Oliver Olmo & Urda Lozano 2015a, 2015b; Pisarello & Asens 2014; and Stop Represión Rioja 2013.

3. Organic Law 1/1992 of 21 February on the Protection of Public Safety, BOE, 22-02-1992 [updated: 31-03-2015], 46: 6209–14.

4. The mareas ciudadanas (civic tides) or simply mareas (tides) were several demon-strations made up of outraged people demanding different things, above all dignity, work, and the end to both debt repayment and spending cuts. Most of these tides converged in Madrid on February 23, 2013 (23-F), March 22, 2014 (22-M), and March 21, 2015, under the names Marea Ciudadana (Civic Tide) in 2013 and Marchas de la Dignidad (Marches for Dignity) in 2014 and 2015 (Marchas de la Dignidad, n.d.; Marea Ciudadana, n.d.).

5. See “Mareas y colectivos adheridas/os a Marea Ciudadana,” Marea Ciudadana, at http://mareaciudadana.blogspot.com.es/p/adhesiones.html.

6. See “Conferencia de Aryeh Neier,” Rights International Spain, at http://rightsin-ternationalspain.org/es/campanias/15/ley-mordaza/43/conferencia-de-aryeh-neier.

7. The Guardia Civil (Civil Guard) is the Spanish militarized police corps, similar to France’s Gendarmerie and Italy’s Carabinieri.

8. The cases discussed are documented in the aforementioned report by Amnesty International, as well as by Stop Represión Rioja (2013, 24) and No Somos Delito (2014, 7-8, 12, 17).

9. The full text of the law can be found at www.global-regulation.com/transla-tion/spain/1468252/law-30-1992%252c-of-26-november%252c-legal-regime-of-pub-lic-administrations-and-common-administrative-procedure.html.

10. Comisión Legal Sol defends individuals who have received penalties (“initiation agreements” in technical language). Out of the 1,017 sanctions imposed between May 15, 2011, and the winter of 2014, they have managed to take more than one hundred to admin-istrative litigation courts, where most of them have been annulled.

11. Organic Law 10/1995 of November 23 of the Penal Code, BOE, 24-11-1995 [updated: 28-04-2015], 281: 33987–4058.

12. Organic Law 1/2015 of 30 March, modifying Organic Law 10/1995 of November 23 of the Penal Code, BOE, 31-03-2015, 77: 27061–176 & Organic Law 4/2015 of 30 March on the Protection of Public Safety, BOE, 31-03-2015, 77: 27216–243.

13. See Section 62 of the 1978 Spanish Constitution, BOE, 29-12-1978 [updated: 27-09-2011], 311: 29313–424.

14. See “Conferencia,” Rights International Spain.15. Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) (Platform of People Affected by a

Mortgage) is a social movement that takes the form of local assemblies to fight one of the consequences of the economic crisis in Spain: evictions. The PAH demands legal changes like the introduction of the possibility of returning houses to the banks when the people who live in them find it unaffordable to continue paying the mortgage. However, the most visible action of the PAH has been the escrache: a pacific demonstration in front of the home or workplace of a politician, shouting slogans in order to put pressure on him or her. The PAH was founded in Barcelona in 2009 and the popularity attained by one of its leaders, Ada Colau, led to her becoming the mayor of the city in 2015.

Repression in Spain after 15-M: The Gag Law 93

16. Organic Law 2/2015 of 30 March, amending Organic Law 10/1995 of 23 November of the Penal Code relating to terrorist offenses, BOE, 31-03-2015, 77: 27177–85.

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