We'll keep reporting, we'll report to the police
- In a short time, the Local Police of Vitoria-Gasteiz has hampered the work of the journalists of ARGIA and HALA BEDI. On 7 May, a local police force in Vitoria-Gasteiz tried to prevent the ARGIA journalist from taking pictures of the police operation related to a eviction. On 8 May, the Ertzaintza blocked the journalist of HALA BEDI to report the protests against the eviction of the feminist okupado space Talka. In both cases, the police have acted with intimidation and lies, as reported by the Department of Security. The Basque College of Journalists (KEE) and the Basque Association of Journalists (EKE) have shown their support for the two media. ARGIA and HALA BEDI will jointly denounce the attitude of the police in the Union and the Ararteko, and we will have the presence of the KEE and EKE associations.
We will continue to report. It is not the first time that the police have violated the right to information and journalists in Euskal Herria and in the world. It is not the first time that journalists from ARGIA and HALA BEDI have been persecuted. We said this in the face of the attempts to censure the past, and today we are ratifying it: we will continue to report.
Freedom of information and expression are fundamental rights. A critical follow-up of the actions of power and police work should be the day to day of a healthy society. As long as this is not the case, the independent media that testifies to abuses are particularly necessary.
Complaint with the support of journalists' associations
The Basque College of Journalists (KEE) and the Basque Association of Journalists (EKE) have shown their support for ARGIA and Hala Bedi. They have denounced "forcefully" police threats and ensured that these are "acts that go against the right to inform". They have also condemned any act by the authorities and security forces aimed at the "pre-censorship" of the media. And they have asked the institutions to guarantee the “public function” of journalists, that society be informed “with truthful, proven and good source data”.
For all these reasons, ARGIA and HALA BEDI will denounce the attitude of the Police on 7 and 8 May, and we will have associations of Basque journalists KEE and EKE. Complaints will be lodged with the citizens' institutions of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the CAV: The Union and the Ararteko.
More than ever in this historic port
The police mainly try to prevent the capture of images through the application of the Moorish Law and its threat. It is an anti-democratic law against rights, but let us be clear that it does not prohibit taking images. Neither journalists nor any citizens. The use given to images is the one that can be sanctioned.
The Mordaza Law was approved by the Spanish Congress in 2015, in a very specific context: The fight against these policies was opened in 2011 in the State with a new cycle of strong citizens; the use of civil and political rights multiplied and deepened, among them the taking of images of police abuse, both by independent journalists and by the citizens; before this “abusive” use of rights, the Mordaza Law and other adaptations of the penal code were approved. Today, in 2020, we are in a crisis that could end in 2008. If we do not want to repeat the recent history, if we want to give a just way out of the crisis, if we want to paralyse the power agenda and enhance the common good, we must continue to exercise the right to information.
Police recording is a right of all citizens
Steilas considers out of place the effort of the Rectorate of the UPV/EHU to prevent the participation of a person through a communication at the congress on Sovereignty(s) held recently in our university. We do not understand the attempt to obstruct the academic activity of a... [+]
