WE ARE NOT CRIME.
Citizen Platform against the Citizens’ Security Law and Penal Code Reform.

The platform “We are not crime”, formed by over a hundred citizens’ organizations, activists, and jurists, is born with the intention of informing citizens about the meaning of these reforms, which restrict fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and assembly in the name of “citizens’ security”, and to pressure the government into withdrawing them immediately.

These reforms incorporate new offences that directly target collectives that do not endanger citizens’ securities, such as activists, immigrants, and people with scarce economic resources. But at the same time, it does not contemplate harsher punishment for corruption or for white-collar criminals. We believe that this disproportion is totally unjustified, precisely now when citizens are suffering the consequences of the financial crisis and the country is going through one of its most scandalous chapter in corruption matter.

This platform demands that the government withdraws both reforms, as they tend to arbitrariness and a disproportional application of the law.

GAG LAWS

The Protection of Citizens’ Security Bill, alongside the Penal Code Reform and the Anti-terror Pact, constitutes an attack on constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, and expression.

Its objective is not to “guarantee citizens’ safety”, as the government states, but to repress the freedom of peaceful assembly against the raising wave of critical protests.

The Gag Laws introduce intimidatory penalties, whose objectives are to muzzle protests in times of crisis. The new law allows fines of up to €30,000 for protesting in front of Congress, for protesting against evictions, or disseminating photographs of police officers, or up to €600 for assembling in public places. Also, allowing automatic expulsions of people crossing the border, infringing the right of asylum.

Furthermore, with the new Penal Code, people spreading the protest’s messages or peacefully resisting in the protest can be sentenced to 3 months, and up to a year in jail. And helping someone whose in-country situation hasn’t been regularized carries a sentence of 6 months up to a year.

You can view all penalties here.

DOWNLOAD

MANIFIESTO. WE ARE NOT CRIME.

The People’s Party, abusing its absolute majority, wants to pass the Protection of Citizens’ Securities Bill on its own. The We Are Not Crime platform has been denouncing for over a year that:

1. This reform, best known as the Gag Law, is a brutal blow to the social and democratic state governed by the rule of law. Its enforcement is an attack on the inherent rights of a democracy, as are the freedom of expression or the freedom of assembly.
2. This bill is aimed at dealing out disproportional punishment for the exercise of the freedom of assembly, association, expression, information, or the right to strike, with disproportional fines ranging from €100 to €600,000.
3. Protests cannot be submitted to a de facto authorization. It’s stated in Article 21 of the Spanish Constitution. The Gag Law stipulates fines of up to €300,000 for unauthorized protests.
4. In a democratic society urban areas are not only a space for circulation, but also a space for participation. The Constitutional Tribunal says so. We cannot allow citizens who assemble on the streets be fined with up to €600.
5. Banning protests outside parliament constitutes a disproportional restriction on the freedom of assembly. The UN’s Special Rapporteur says so. The Gag Law stipulates fines of up to €30,000 for protesting outside of Congress.
6. Social movements, human rights watch groups, citizens, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, every opposition party, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, and UN’s Human Rights rapporteurs have clearly come out against this law.
7. The Gag Law has an insignificant support of 7% of the population.
8. This law violates international treaties and conventions on human rights. Through this law the People’s Party pretends to habilitate the automatic deportation of people crossing the border with Morocco, an illegal practice that infringes the right of asylum, flagrantly injuring Community Law and international treaties and conventions.
9. The Gag Law doesn’t come unaccompanied. It comes in a package of government-led reforms to the Penal Code, the National Security or Antiterrorism Law, the Criminal Prosecution Law, the Legal Aid Law, the Fees Law, and the Private Security Law. A group of Gag Laws, with which our access to justice will be limited, and our lives put at risk in times of democracy and freedom.
10. What does the Government mean with “citizens’ security” regarding these reforms? Having access to our fundamental rights such as decent housing, public education and healthcare, decent wages, and access to culture, that’s security. And none of that is being guaranteed, on the contrary, its being taken. We know these laws are not for our safety, we know they have been thought out and made to protect the interest of a government that’s abusing its majority to legislate for its own benefit.

11. “Do not them fool us: these reforms are unnecessary”

    It’s not true that citizens are demanding more security. The reality of it is that citizens’ security is not a priority concern for Spaniards. According to public organisms’ polls citizens’ security occupies the 12th place, behind healthcare, education, unemployment, the economic crisis, and corruption.

12. Its justification does not hold up in quantitative terms based on an increase of violence or other type of offences during the exercise of the right of assembly in Spain. According to the Interior Ministry’s data, of over 87,000 protests celebrated in Spain in the past two years, in less than 1% of them incidents have occurred.

This platform demands that both reforms, which tend to arbitrariness and a disproportional application of the law, and that directly criminalizes the claims inherent to protests, as well as the actions committed by people who fight in precarious situations with scarce economic resources, be withdrawn by the government.

Because protesting works, say “NO” to the Gag Law!

We’ve already said that we would mobilize vigorously if these laws pass. We will defend our right to protest, protesting. We will not allow for practices best suited for a dictatorship to be brought back. We will continue to march on the streets to state that we do not want to live gaged, that we are not afraid, and that we are not crime. Because we know that together we can stop them. Act now!