The new and massive protest against the amnesty in Madrid this Tuesday night caused the collapse of the center of the capital of Spain due to an uncommunicated march that trapped thousands of citizens, in addition to unleashing, for the second consecutive day, more charges police and violence in the vicinity of the socialist headquarters of Ferraz.
There, at the PSOE headquarters, the riot police, this time, stoically endured nearly three hours of provocations from openly violent far-right radicals until they proceeded to dissolve the original and uncommunicated demonstration in an expeditious manner. And, again, with the questioned tear gas that was already used on Monday in the much smaller and less aggressive concentration.
The great peculiarity of this Tuesday was that the original call against the measure of grace for the independentists in front of the PSOE headquarters in Ferraz, taken literally by the riot police, led to a second simultaneous demonstration that, after passing without prior notice along the Gran Vía , ended in a sit-in in front of the Congress of Deputies and, in the process, caused tremendous traffic chaos in the center of the capital of Spain, turning it into a mousetrap.
The leader of Desokupa, Daniel Esteve, and the controversial far-right agitator Alvise Pérez, who had devoted themselves in the last 24 hours to calls for participation in this protest shouting “frontal fight against government repression”, were on hand. the leader of the unauthorized protest in front of the Palacio de la Carrera de San Jerónimo, which ended without incident.
We do not expect anything from those who, by action or omission, support the siege of socialist people’s homes. Their silence portrays them.
Social advancement and coexistence are worth it.
They will not break @PSOE.
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) November 7, 2023
However, the big stuff was cooking in Ferraz. In the vicinity of the socialist headquarters, the profile of the gathering and protesters this Tuesday was much younger and, above all, much more radical than what had been seen during the protests of recent days. In that scenario, in which, according to the Government Delegation, up to 7,000 people gathered, it was clear from the beginning that there were going to be incidents.
Insults to the King
In Ferraz, the insults to the King, the Constitution and the Police were heard almost more insistently than the insults to Pedro Sánchez, Carles Puigdemont or the cries against the amnesty. Chants of ‘Face to the sun’ and pre-constitutional flags gave way as the night began to harsh provocations to the uniformed men, who this Tuesday had deployed a superb security operation. A device made up of 320 members (seven groups) of the Police Intervention Units (UIP, anti-riot), some arrived in the capital of Spain in the last few hours to reinforce the Ferraz headquarters, converted into the epicenter of the mobilizations against the negotiation of the socialists with ERC and Junts.
The groups of hooded men had their first encounters with the riot police, who were very contained, after 9 p.m. Shortly after, bottles, firecrackers and flares began to be thrown at the agents. And finally, as the radicals sought from the beginning, the Police charges to prevent the attacks of the ultras from ending up breaking the security perimeter.
From there, chaos. A pitched battle. Races, burning of containers, beatings, tear gas, charges, gunshots, arrests… at least seven injured, one of them a police officer…
The violence unleashed in the vicinity of the socialists’ headquarters provoked the rejection of the Government and its partners. Sánchez himself, when the charges were still continuing in the vicinity of Ferraz, stated on social networks that these protests “will not break the PSOE.” And he took the opportunity, without citing them, to attack the PP for not condemning these demonstrations in front of the headquarters. «We do not expect anything from those who, by action or omission, support the siege of socialist town houses. Their silence portrays them. Social progress and coexistence are worth it,” he wrote in X.
The only parliamentary party that supported this call that dispersed through the heart of Madrid was Vox, which called on its people to “demonstrate peacefully” while demanding the Government Delegation to “protect” that right.
This Tuesday’s concentration and the subsequent demonstration, like the protests of the previous days, had not been communicated to the Government Delegation and occurred a day after Monday’s protest ended with charges and the launching of tear gas by the Police, in an intervention that raised a lot of criticism and that the Ministry of the Interior justified by the presence of about 200 “ultra aesthetic” people, who threw objects at the agents.
The protesters this Tuesday, much more violent than those on Monday and in many cases masked, in addition to slogans against Sánchez, the Government or Carles Puigdemont, chanted above all slogans against the Police – such as “you have no balls against the Moors” or ” to be a police officer, I would be ashamed” -, they launched homophobic insults against Fernando Grande-Marlaska and shouted xenophobic slogans of all kinds.
Amalgamation of groups
Behind this Tuesday’s call there was an amalgamation of associations and individuals. As in previous days, Revuelta and Plataforma 711, the two youth associations close to Vox, called on social networks for their supporters to go to the Moncloa district headquarters, with a prior regrouping stop in the vicinity of Parque del Oeste.
They were joined by the call of Daniel Esteve and Alvise Pérez, two individuals with a lot of influence in the groups further to the right of the social spectrum.
But this time the call was joined by small ultra groups that had not participated in other protests these days, such as National Democracy and, above all, Bastión Frontal, a group with neo-Nazi ideology and a violent nature. Bastión has not hesitated to call his people through public messages on the networks.
Vox made an express call to participate in this new protest before Ferraz through its official X account. On Monday, its leader, Santiago Abascal, and the vice president of Castilla y León, Juan García Gallardo, were already present at the mobilization at the PSOE headquarters.
The PP disengages
The PP, for its part, as in all the protests that are taking place these days in front of the socialist premises, completely disassociated itself from this call that Ferraz started and that has ended up in Congress. The popular ones hope to show their muscle against the amnesty next Sunday, when they have called rallies against this hypothetical clean slate law in all provincial capitals.
The leader of the PP himself, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, demanded at the last minute “respect and exemplarity” in the protests against the PSOE pacts with the Catalan independentists and the future amnesty law, while blaming the acting president, Pedro Sánchez. , of causing “social unrest” among citizens. «We are not like them. Not even like the minority that acts the same,” he wrote in a message published on his profile on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Meanwhile, at the Ferraz headquarters, as in the vast majority of socialist establishments in the country, there was no one there since 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday. In the morning, the PSOE leadership transmitted to the different federations of the party the “recommendation” to close their headquarters in the afternoon and send the workers and militants home and not hold any type of activity in the face of what they considered the “violent aspect” of the concentrations.
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