On Tuesday (16 December) the Catalan and Spanish police arrested 11 comrades in a number of raids on three anarchist spaces in Barcelona, and private homes in Barcelona, other Catalan cities, and Madrid. (See this earlier report.)
The police named the raids “Operation Pandora”, they said they were looking for “terrorists” or “violent anarchists”.
Some stories in the media connected the raids to explosions carried out in 2013 in cathedrals in Madrid and Zaragoza (the basilica of Pilar, where the virgin Mary is supposed to have once appeared standing on a pillar), and claimed under the name of “Insurrectionalist Commando Mateo Morral” (Mateo Morral was an anarchist who attempted to assassinate the spanish king in 1906.) Five comrades were already arrested for this action last November. Two, Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar, are still imprisoned awaiting trial. Both were previously imprisoned, and acquitted, for the “Caso Bombas” (bombs case) in Chile.
The raids were followed by lively demonstrations across many towns in Catalunya / Spain throughout Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday afternoon the arrested anarchists appeared in court before a judge named Javier Gómez Bermúdez. The judge freed 4 of the prisoners and sent 7 to the Soto del Real jail, near Madrid. (See this report in Catalan).
The arrested anarchists still haven’t been accused of any particular criminal actions, and the police dossier against them remains secret. However, they are alleged to be part of a terrorist organisation, and of possessing explosives. The explosives, it seems, are camping gas canisters. The accused also possessed a suspicious book called “Against Democracy”, and used “email accounts with extreme security measures, such as the server RISEUP” (a widely used US based activist email server).
Demonstrations against the arrests and raids continued on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday lunchtime, the public prosecutor’s headquarters (Fiscalia) in central Barcelona caught on fire and had to be evacuated, though this appears to be a coincidence. Meanwhile, in the parallel world of twitter, “#yotambiensoyanarquista” (I too am an anarchist) became the number one “trending” Spanish hashtag.
There are big demos due to take place in Barcelona and other cities on Saturday (20 Decemeber). These are mass rallies organised for some time against the “Ley Mordaza” , the repressive law brought in to shut down the social movements by banning many acts such as holding unauthorised demos or photographing police.
To the streets.
