Frances Leate
POLITICIANS have demanded a new law to stop anti-eviction protesters from coming near their homes.
It comes after Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saénz de Santamaría became the latest and most high profile victim of the pickets or “escraches”, at her home in Madrid last month.
Police scuffled with up to 300 protesters outside her house in the upmarket district of Fuente de Berro.
The Deputy Prime Minister was at home with her husband and baby at the time, as protesters shouted “Soraya, Soraya, who pays for your house!).
Now she and members of her PP party have called for a 300m exclusion zone on such protests from coming near their homes.
The protestors — mostly those from the Mortgage Victims Platform (PAH) — have been holding a string of noisy demonstrations outside the homes of lawmakers and government officials in recent weeks.
Although the demonstrators are not committing any crime under current Spanish law, many politicians are calling for the Interior Ministry to step in.
They claim it represents an invasion of privacy for them and their families. Meanwhile the attorney general has ordered prosecutors across Spain to begin collecting data on protestors who have been harassing and heckling elected officials, including those who hold rallies outside their homes.
It is said to be studying whether criminal charges can be filed against participants in these protests.
Welcome to the real world, Soraya.
I guess that the people who have been evicted also “claim it represents an invasion of privacy for them and their families.” when they get evicted by bankers who themselves killed the economy, but are supported by ELECTED people who are supposed to protect and represent the wishes of the people.
Of course those elected officials could just HEAR the suffering that protecting bank shareholders causes.
They don’t like it up ’em do they?
Politicians the world over think they have a god given right to be protected from the harsh realities of life, well tough when you learn to run countries for the benefit of the voters perhaps they will leave you in peace without the need for yet more laws to protect the guilty.
Poor old Soraya de Saenz de Santemaria looking down at the dispossessed masses with her 100 euro big hair and tarted up face. Like how dare they protest, how dare they come to our homes and disturb our family peace. Don’t they realise that we are their appointed overlords and rulers! The PP all over Spain are up to their necks in hubris and their reactions show how the escraches hit a raw nerve.
How dare they! The great unwashed protesting near our homes. There must be a law we can use. Once we give their jobs to the chinese (so we can make more profit), and then we take their homes (so we can sell them at a discount to our friends), then why dont these people just go away or die.
Dont they know its disturbing to hear them starving in the streets while we shop online for plasma 3d tv’s. And to actually hinder my driving about in my BMW x6 with their homeless filthy children is unforgivable.
We must find a way to export them.
And did you see, they managed to pass their law IN ONE DAY. Spain the country world famous for taking its sweet time on everything…