Spain: Retake the Streets

Justice Now!: Spain's Indignados to Retake the Streets

- Common Dreams staff

Spain's "indignados" will be hitting the streets this weekend in the tens of thousands to mark their one-year anniversary with renewed calls for economic justice.
Poster from madrilonia.org. “We need to take back all the wealth and redistribute it fairly,” Aitor, a member of Real Democracy Now (Democracia Real Ya), which started the 15-M movement, told El País.
Jon Aguirre, a 27-year-old architect, told Agence France-Presse, "When families can no longer help, we will see what happens: what happened in Greece is not far off."
In the face of the government cracking down on protest, Spaniards will be met with thousands of riot police this weekend who will arrest anyone attempting to make encampments.  In addition, the government has already limited the amount of time protests will be allowed in Madrid.
Ter Garcia writes in Waging Nonviolence: “We don’t want May 12 to be a celebration of our anniversary, or a one-day demonstration,” one often hears activists in the Spanish 15M movement saying lately. “We want it to be a new milestone.”
The indignados' protest, starting tomorrow, will culminate on the 15th, the movement's birth in Madrid's Puerta del Sol.
The weekend will also see global protests to call for justice for the 99%. On the May 12 2012 website, which lists scheduled actions across the globe, a call for action reads: "In 2011 we showed another world was possible. Our struggle continues in 2012; together we will rally against corruption, human-rights violations, censorship, police brutality and corporate greed. May 12th, 2012 — everywhere. Join us."

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