Spanish police march in Madrid to protest Reuters’ s’ Gag Law ‘change

By Miguel Gutierrez and Marco Trujillo

MADRID (Reuters) – Thousands of Spanish police officers marched in Madrid on Saturday to protest against a proposed security crackdown on security forces.

Politicians from Spain’s three main political parties joined forces with the police in protest of the 2015 Citizens Security Law reform, which opponents say violates the right to freedom of expression and to restrict freedom of expression.

The so-called “Gag Law” and its opponents, the law allows authorities to pay media outlets for distributing illegal police photos, prohibit demonstrations and pay high fines to offenders.

The government of the left in Spain has planned changes to include the suspension of photographing or photographing of police during demonstrations as a major crime.

In the transition, police have also used non-lethal weapons during demonstrations after several people were seriously injured by rubber bullets fired by police.

The probable length of probation will be reduced to six hours to two hours and the fine will be equal to the amount the offender earns.

“They have to abandon existing laws or make the police and citizens better,” Civil Guard police spokeswoman Vanessa Gonzalez told Reuters.

Ivan Espinosa de los Monteros, of the Vox remote party, said: “There are a lot of opponents (reforms) of the law. They are against our police and we will not allow that to happen.”

However, Isa Serra, a spokesman for the far-flung Unidas Podemos party, said at a conference in Cantabria in northern Spain that the law had seriously undermined “Spanish democracy”.

Organizers said 150,000 people took part in the Madrid protest but the government placed 20,000 people.