Laurence Dollimore
BASQUE magazine Argia says one of its photographers has been fined under Spain’s so-called “gag law” for posting photos of police onto Twitter.
Axier Lopez was reportedly fined €601 for tweeting photos of police arresting a woman who had failed to appear in court.
The Interior Ministry’s notification allegedly says the fine was for publishing the photographs “without authorization”, which put the officers at risk because they could be identified publicly.
The Spanish government’s 2015 Public Security Law has been criticized by United Nations experts and rights groups, who say it undermines free assembly and expression.
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. – Harry S. Truman
Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950
They are REALLY doing it. Chilling stuff.
If you wear a uniform you are publicly recognised. What’s the difference?
Will Rajoy’s PP make balaclavas a standard part of police uniforms?
Supression of free speech is one step away from authoritarianism……..
How is telling the truth hate speech?
“.. put the officers at risk because they could be identified publicly..” Since when has it been a bad thing — a crime yet — for a public authority figure to be publicly identified? It seems that we talk about the bad old days when there were “secret policemen” around, and yet what else do we have now?
Watch TV news in any country: Spain, UK, US, France — anywhere, and you’ll see unidentified, and unidentifiable police officers. See a news picture of a masked man with a gun, and two guesses who he is: a terrorist, or a policeman. Small wonder that so many young people can’t tell the difference any more, nor decide which side they want to be on!