The protests against the amnesty returned this Wednesday to the national headquarters of the PSOE on Ferraz Street in Madrid, but in a completely peaceful manner, for the moment. For the sixth consecutive day, a crowd gathered this afternoon in the vicinity of the socialists’ headquarters, armored by nearly 300 agents from the Police Intervention Units (UIP, anti-riot), where they were summoned starting at 8 p.m. a new mobilization.
Among the attendees there were no members of violent extreme right groups and ultras, who were visible from the first moment on Tuesday. Only a small group of masked people have left the area after being scolded by attendees shouting “no violence!” Two other young radicals have been removed from the rally by the police at the request of attendees for carrying pre-constitutional flags. And another one shouting “ultras out!” and “that flag does not represent us.” A large banner also makes clear the idea that attendees want to make a difference with the images of charges, fires and detainees on Tuesday: “We are not CDR.”
The attendees are making every effort, also through public address systems, to ensure that people do not approach the police fence and that there are no attacks against the cordon. The atmosphere is so calm that the riot police guard the perimeter of the headquarters without helmets.
The cries of “we are going to stop this amnesty”, “Puigdemont to prison”, “Pedro Sánchez, son of a bitch”, “that van, for Puigdemont”, “let Txapote vote for you” or “Sánchez, you felon” are heard in the rally in which, unlike Tuesday, there are no insults to the Police or slogans against the Monarchy or the Constitution.
The concentration, in which the average age is much higher than previous calls, takes place after two days of altercations in the surroundings of Ferraz, with especially violent incidents on Tuesday night when nearly 400 radicals from extreme right-wing and neo-Nazi groups They confronted the riot police, provoking a true pitched battle – charges and tear gas included – that resulted in around forty people injured, many of them police officers, and seven arrested.
This Wednesday’s mobilization had been called, as on previous occasions, by an amalgam of groups and individuals through social networks, although, also as usual, it had not been communicated to the Government Delegation. Among the small ultra groups that have called to mobilize are, among others, Bastión Frontal, Hace Nación, Democracia Nacional or España 2000, the same groups that were already on the front line on Tuesday, provoking the riot police for hours first with insults and then , with the launching of pyrotechnics and blunt objects. However, the activists of these radical and anti-system groups have made a massive appearance and the few who have shown up have been immediately expelled by those present.
“With bare face”
Neither the charges on Monday in Ferraz nor the violent altercations on Tuesday in that same scenario have made Vox dissociate itself from these unauthorized protests, from which the PP already expressly disassociated itself at the beginning of this week. Santiago Abascal’s party today insisted on calling for support for the protests against the amnesty, always peacefully, shouting “Permanent mobilization!” and “They won’t silence us!” «Spain has reacted against the coup that Sánchez intends to deliver! “Always with Spain that takes to the streets with an open face!” Vox encouraged from its X account. Solidaridad, Vox’s union, also demanded “constant mobilization” from its members.
Along the same lines, despite the latest incidents, Revuelta moved, the youth group close to Abascal’s formation and which was behind the mobilization of the first calls for the agreement between the PSOE and the Catalan independentists for the disappearance of the causes of the process. «Spain has reacted against the coup that Sánchez intends to deliver! Always with Spain that takes to the streets with an open face! Permanent mobilization! “They will not be able to silence us!” Revuelta harangued on his social networks.
Other manifestations
The demonstration in Madrid is the largest of the protests this Wednesday against the pact that the PSOE wants to reach with the Catalan independentists for an amnesty law in exchange for their votes for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, but it is not the only one. There are protests in Santander, where 4,000 people demonstrate and some flares and hooded men have appeared, in Zaragoza or in Belgium, in front of the Sofitel Hotel in Brussels, where Santos Cerdán, number three of the PSOE and who pilots the negotiations of the PSOE with Carles Puigdemont.
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