In these five years, freedom of expression, the right to mobilise and the right to receive and disseminate information have suffered enormous cutbacks in a Spanish State immersed in the health, territorial, economic and social crisis.

Since its entry into force on 1 July 2015, attacks on social, civil and political rights have not ceased. The decisions against these rights that develop fundamental human rights, as well as the police abuses of the different police forces, have had no limits even during the time of the coronavirus. Judicial and police persecution against social and political protest in the Spanish State has been reinforced in the last five years. It's a clear sign of involution.

Proof of this are the 766,416 sanctions imposed in the Spanish State between the entry into force of the Moorish Law in 2015 and 2019 and the 416,527,489 € collected, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. Catalonia and the Basque Country are above these figures, unless the data of the Mossos and the Ertzaintza and Forales have been computed there.

Among them, the main articles related to the reduction of social, civil and political rights (36.23 police images, 36.6 disobedience, 37.4 disrespect, 37.1 unreported mobilizations) have been involved in 80 fines per day in the Spanish State in the last five years. Many of these sanctions have been imposed against movements defending housing rights, as well as against environmental or anti-capitalist movements. Do not forget that the Mordaza Act has also increased the immediate anti-democratic expulsions of immigrants.

The implementation of the Mordaza Law has experienced an 80% growth in five years os.En 2015 a total of 87,872 fines were imposed for criminal offences. 197,947, in 2016. 229,932 in 2017. And 249,665 in 2018. Data for 2019 is missing. In 2015, €41,570,000 was received and in 2018, for example, €149,000,000.

The result of Hego Euskal Herria has also been spectacular. Although both parliaments expressed their rejection of the Moorish Law in 2016, and although the Basque Parliament urged the Basque Government in June 2016 not to apply the Moorish Law, the Ertzaintza reported that in the CAV it imposed 17,820 fines in the years 2015-2018. In those years, 3,317 files were opened for “disrespect” and 1,880 sanctions for “disobedience” or “resistance”. In addition, 338 “unauthorized mobilizations” were established. The condemned, both citizens and social partners, paid the Basque Government a total of EUR 1,327,722, but the government acknowledged that it had already requested a total of EUR 4.5 million.

To these data we must add the fines imposed by the Foral Police in Navarre (around 3,000 for 2016), as well as the thousands of sanctions imposed by the National Police, Civil Guard and Municipal Police throughout the Southern Basque Country during the years 2019 and 2020. Over 30,000 direct estimation dossiers. These include over 8,000 social, civil and political rights.

The Moorish Law has also had a strong impact on Catalonia. According to the Omniun Cultural Association, social protest around the popular consultation resulted in a minimum of 20,000 fines. It is undeniable that the State has created the Mordaza Law to punish political dissent and social criticism and has demonstrated in Catalonia how far it is prepared to go in the face of civil disobedience: Article 155 and suspension of autonomy.

Therefore, in 2018 most of the social, trade union and political agents of Euskal Herria called for the repeal of the Mordaza Law. Among others, the movements Ongi Etorri Errefuxiatuak, Komite Internazionalistak, Euskal Herriko Bilgune Feminista, Bake Ekintza Taldea Antimilitaristak, Askapinikalak Antimilitaristak, Askapiniza, NOR Euskalikalikak were joined the motion. Among the unions, ELA, LAB, ESK and STEILAS joined the protest against the reform of the law. Among the political forces, Sortu, Equo and EH Bildu have shown their support for the Abertzale coalition. And among the local media, Argiak, Halabedik and Topatu. In two words, the majority of Basque society called for the repeal of the Moorish Law.

However, in 2020, the Spanish State has resorted to the Moorish Law also in the Coronavirus emergency. The Ministry of the Interior has indicated that in the first two weeks, fifteen days after the entry into force of the state of alarm, it used the Mordaza Law up to 180,387 times in the Spanish State. In Hego Euskal Herria it has been used in 29,673 occasions. Is that normal? Let us give you one point: in the first ten days, three times more sanctions were imposed in the Spanish State than were imposed in Italy in the first month... In this way, more than half a million sanctions have been processed in the Spanish State in the emergency phase of the coronavirus, no doubt.

We would like to point out that there have been many abuses of all kinds that have been carried out by different policemen and denounced by different social actors during the health crisis. Nobody knows. On 16 March, UN experts explained that the response given during the coronavirus should be proportionate and non-exclusive. On 19 March these experts said the same thing about freedom of information. Everything has been in vain. The coronavirus crisis has been used in the State to strengthen the repressive means for the future, especially with regard to the use of new technologies.

Therefore, in the last five years there has been a setback in the area of democratic freedoms in the Spanish State and, in particular, in the field of social, civil and political rights. Apart from the hundreds of thousands of cases opened during the health alarm, the sanctions imposed on the population throughout the Spanish State are already close to 500,000.

It must be borne in mind that the Mordaza Law allows them everything. Singing Rapa is a crime, as Valtonyc, La Insurgencia or Hasel have shown; writing tweets, in the case of Alfredo or César Strawberry; distributing political jokes on the net, as Cassandra Vera has shown; putting the clown nose and pasting a piquillo in the town is a crime, publishing photos in the case of the Basque police…

Last year 2019 at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the ELEAK-Libre movement clearly stated the following: “The Organic Law 4/2015 on Citizen Protection, the Mordaza Law, has clearly accentuated police abuses and violations of the fundamental rights of assembly, demonstration, organization and freedom of the press, increasing repression against political criticism and social mobilization. This Law entails the disappearance of the existing procedural guarantees in any penalty procedure, undermining the principles of legal certainty, legality, right of defence and presumption of innocence, equality of parties/processes and proportionality. The Central Register of Infringements discriminates on ideological grounds. In this dynamic, the Spanish State has taken a step further with the promulgation of the recently approved Decree-Law 14/2019, which opens the door to the adoption of urgent measures for security reasons in the field of digital administration, creating a true “digital haze”. All this legislation promotes the criminalization and repression of social, trade union and political movements, so we have asked the United Nations to call on the Spanish State to repeal it immediately.”

Finally, on March 15, Interior Minister Fernando Grande Marlaska said in an interview with The New York Times that the Government of Pedro Sánchez intended to revise the Moorish Law, although at the moment it was not the time.

On this 5th Anniversary of the Moorish Law, after seeing the change in the Government of Madrid, from the ELEAK-Libre Movement we urgently call on all political forces to repeal the Moorish Law as soon as possible, which the PP unilaterally imposed and which is now possible.

In the meantime we call for disobedience.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that the PP has lost the majority it had in the main institutions of the state, we see no real will to repeal a Mordaza law that denies or frustrates fundamental human rights. It does not seem that the main Spanish political forces and their regional allies are interested in the withdrawal of the Moorish Law in its entirety, even though the social movements proclaim it. At best, they will reform the Mordaza Law, “democratizing” the Mordaza Law, which is Article 155 against social movements. In fact, do not forget that the social protest over the economic crisis that is getting tougher from the autumn will require all the repressive resources to be able to control the situation. The Moorish Law is made "ad hoc" to punish and curb the social revolt that will occur.

We, for our part, have not allowed social, civic and political disobedience to become a crime. We cannot allow them to say and argue that the struggle for the liberation of the non-violent class or national is violence or terrorism. Civil disobedience, lack of cooperation, input, popular resistance or direct action are not crimes and crimes are not crimes and we must put them into practice to deal with the aggressions we suffer. If we don't change the rules of the game, we're done, we're going to be ruined by all rights.

We must be unwavering in the defence and practice of our rights and freedoms. Our non-violent resistance must be firm and constant, as this practice will destroy all its political legal discourse. They want our violence to outlaw everything and socially legitimize the attack on them. They're professional provocators, but we're not going to fall into their game.

We must turn repression, regression and centralization of the state into instruments to strengthen and strengthen our freedom project. The more aggressions against us, the more mobilizing responses we have to respond. In the January General Strike, in the case of the Alsasua, in the issue of the Pensioners, in the issue of the Pensioners, in the mobilization against racism that occurred after the death of George Floyd, in the initiatives against climate warming or in the different dynamics in favor of the Basque, the Basques and the Basque Country we have shown our passion and capacity to fight.

In that we must be stronger, tireless, constant, tenacious. We must develop strategies of civil resistance and disobedience. It is the turn of the civil resistance, the revolt of the national and social construction.

Repression of the struggle. Disobedience ahead!