Spain is the latest poster child for economic chaos as a result of the euro meltdown. After months of protests, the government is pushing back.
Allegedly to protect the lives of law enforcement officers, but more likely a crack-down on freedom of expression, Spain's government is drafting a law to ban citizens from photographing or filming police officers at their work.The drafting of this legislation comes amidst waves of protests throughout Spain over the austerity cuts to public healthcare and education. With the Interior Minister, Jorge Fernandez Diaz, stating that they are not cracking down on freedom of expression, the new "Citizen Safety Law" will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or information of members of the security or armed forces in the line of duty,” according to Ignacio Cosidó, the Director General of the police. Cosidó added that the new legislation seeks to “find a balance between the protection of citizens’ rights and those of security forces.” Under this new legislation, it will also be punishable by law to disseminate photos and videos over social networks, like Facebook.
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Punishing people for expressing their feelings, thought or concern through pictures and video in regards to how the police deals with different situations is not ok. People in Spain should be able to upload these videos because a lot of the time, they show an injustice being committed. There have been several occasions were these uploads show cops beating people for protesting, for expressing their freedom of speech. Without these uploads, no one will ever see what happens in the streets. Some people with authority take advantage of their power and use it against innocent people and that is what these uploads showed. They are needed to see reality and by the government banning them, they are basically saying that something is not right in how things work.
ReplyDeleteEven though it was almost a year and a half ago, these protests were just starting when I was studying abroad in Madrid. Sol, the center of the city, practically became a shanty town filled with protestors and their make-shift tents. As far as the government control aspect goes, I feel like there may be more effective ways to contain the situation and protect the law enforcement officers than cracking down on photo/video taking. For example, perhaps they could control the areas/times that protesting is allowed to take place, but still allow the citizens to express themselves freely.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to document protests is the only way of giving any credibility to accounts of what happens at them, by taking away the public's right to document the events, the government is giving the police a clear upper hand, and it seems to show that the government is seeing the demonstrators less as protesters and more as rioters. Moreover, this paradigm shift shows that the government is now somewhat unconcerned with what the society desires. This action takes Spain one step closer towards being a police state, but we hardly have a good vantage from which to judge as many big American cities have enacted similar laws.
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