In the report we have presented to the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations, it is explained that the entry into force on 1 July 2015 of Organic Law 4/2015, of 30 March, on Citizen Protection, the "Mordaza Law", resulted in a significant increase in police abuse, violations of fundamental rights, violations of the principles of legal security, legality, procedural equality. This is an undemocratic disaster that has taken place in the last four years.

Throughout these years, attacks on the media, the media and journalists have multiplied in the development of their information work. There have also been attacks on the rights of bloggers, for making social criticisms over the Internet. Similar attacks have been carried out by artists and singers for the content of their functions. The repression against all forms of social protest developed by the social and union movements in Hego Euskal Herria and throughout the Spanish State has intensified. And finally, a few weeks ago the Government of Madrid has also launched the “Mozal Digitala” initiative, which aims to make the use of the Internet and social networks more difficult for the State.

In the case of the Basque Country, moreover, these attacks have occurred against the opinion of the political majority of the two Autonomous Parliaments of the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre, which pronounced against the Organic Law 4/2015, of 30 March, on the Protection of Citizenship, in the plenary debates on violations of rights arising from the application of this law in 2016. Unfortunately, during these four years, the Ertzaintza, the Foral Police and the Municipal Police have continued to apply the Moorish Law to the detriment of all citizens, ignoring the will of both parliaments.

And it's that the content of the Moorish Law is so vague and so cruel to the constant use of policemen, that today neither citizens nor social activists know for sure what they can and can't do in social protests.

The Spanish State stated that in the first year of the Moorish Law, fines were fined with 285,919 fines, condemning as many other persons, thus condemning a total of 131,470,206 euros. And since then, another three years have passed. Imagine.

According to the data published by the ELEAK-Libre Movement, in that first year the Citizen Security Act was applied in more than 11,000 cases in the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre. And also in this case, it's been three more years.

The conclusion is clear. As many Basque lawyers have pointed out, especially those of the collective called Lawyers of Collective Liberties (AKAB), in their articles and work on this Law on Citizen Security, its implementation has resulted in a violation of the basic social, civil and political rights of citizens and, above all, a repression of social, trade union or political movements of a critical nature, to control the critical or dissident population or through fines. Immigrants also suffer the negative impact of the Moorish Law.

Basque lawyers stress that in order to understand what the implementation of Law 4/2015 on the Protection of Citizenship has meant in practice, it is essential to bear in mind that, at the same time as it was approved in the Congress of Deputies, the amendment of the Penal Code and Law 4/2014 on Private Security was also approved. All three have produced a complete package of anti-repressive legislation that punishes all citizens of Euskal Herria.

This modification of the Criminal Law has resulted in the disappearance of the “faults” of the legal system, some of which have been incorporated into the new Law of Citizen Security, such as administrative faults, and others, to harden them, have turned them into crimes of the new text of the Penal Code. It is confusing that there are conducts contained in two legal texts, such as disobedience, resistance or public disorder, and none of them sets criteria for applying one or another rule.

All this has had a very serious impact on the social, civil and political rights of citizens and activists, which should be rigorously respected by all the security forces of the State, the Autonomous Communities and the municipalities.

In Madrid the option is now

In September 2018, Congress approved two proposals of the PSOE and the PNV to reform the Organic Law 4/2015, of March 30, on Citizen Protection and rejected the alternative text presented by EH Bildu. Things have not moved since the tragedy.

However, now that negotiations for the formation of a new government of the State following the last General Elections in the Spanish State are already underway, the Moldovan Law can be repealed. That is why it has been important for us to present our work this very week in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

It is more than ever necessary that the Organic Law 4/2015, of March 30, on Citizen Protection, be immediately repealed to the PSOE and PODEMOS groups, since to continue applying it implies a violation of the basic social, civil and political rights of citizens and activists, not only in Hego Euskal Herria, but throughout the Spanish State.

Joseba Alvarez and Ione San Ildefonso

ELEAK-Libre movement.