Last Friday, the 27th December, Brighton SolFed members and Spanish migrant workers from the collective “Marea Granate”, were in Churchill Square supporting a coordinated international protest against the current wave of repression in Spain. The protest was in response to the call for solidarity by our Spanish comrades.

Last November, thirty workers were arrested because of their participation in an education strike. This is only one more step in the repression and intimidation strategy of the Spanish government. The increase of detentions and the new laws against the protests, show that they want ordinary people to keep quiet while they dismantle basic civil rights and attack their live conditions.

Despite the weather, over ten activists took part and around a hundred pamphlets were given to passersby. Some of them, braving the wind and the rain, decided to stop in order to have more information about what's happening and show their support.

Brighton SolFed, will go on supporting our spanish comrades and we denounce the intimidation by the Spanish government. We know that this is not just a problem of a “foreign country”. Repression is the systematic answer of all states to people who denounce their privileges. Only through international workers' solidarity can we protect ourselves.

From our leaflet:

On November 28th thirty people were arrested in Madrid, nineteen of them in their homes or workplaces. They are accused of participating in violent incidents during the latest education strike. The Spanish mass media immediately published names of those arrested and drew attention to the social or political groups they are members of.

However, some of those arrested weren’t involved and have not committed crimes. What then are the criteria for the Spanish police to detain these people? This is easy to answer – they have illegal blacklists of collectives and individuals. They want to stop the spread of legitimate social protest by using the tactic of fear and intimidation.
Among the collectives targeted we find, once again, the anarchist movement. In this instance the CNT (a historical anarcho-syndicalist union), the FIJL (Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth) as well as individuals. This is not the first time in recent months that state repression against the anarchist movement has significantly increased. There are recent examples of such shocking detentions and processes, in which highly questionable practices have been used, in Barcelona, Sabadell, Logroṅo and elsewhere.
We are not surprised at this because Spanish people are continually suffering serious attacks from the government on their living conditions. Unemployment, privatization, precariousness and political corruption are just a few of the causes for bringing the country towards an explosive situation. The ruling political and economic powers know that only action by the people can thwart their plans.
However, efforts to criminalise and isolate those more actively involved are not the only planned measures. Repression is going so far as to attack the most basic rights of the people. We are facing reform of criminal law and new anti-protest legislation that will mean, for example, life imprisonment, restrictions to the right of demonstration and freedom of expression, lack of legal defence, police collusion with private security and police impunity.
Meanwhile, corruption, fraud and the use of torture is happening before our eyes and an end to this is not anticipated.