Chanting "they don't represent us," tens of thousands in Madrid
railed early Sunday against Spain's government and austerity cuts --
venting their anger on the first anniversary of the so-called May 15
protest movement.
Many ignored a government
deadline to disperse by Saturday night from the central Puerta del Sol
plaza, prompting police to clear the square by 5 a.m. on Sunday (11 p.m.
on Saturday ET), the interior ministry said.
About 30,000 attended the Madrid protest, and 18 were detained for resisting arrest or disorderly conduct, the ministry said.
In the early hours of
Sunday morning, demonstrators were a loud and vibrant presence in the
square -- as a large number of police, stationed at a nearby government
building and along side streets, looked on and let them be.
Throngs of like-minded demonstrators also gathered over the weekend in Barcelona and about 80 other cities around Spain.
Barcelona saw about
22,000 protesters, while Valencia had 8,000 and Seville had 2,000,
authorities said. All the demonstrations were cleared by Sunday morning,
the interior ministry said.
The coordinated events
marked the return of the "indignados" -- or the outraged, as the
protesters became known -- who led Europe's first serious and
significant grassroots movement against austerity and government budget
cuts.
Similar demonstrations
decrying governments' attempts to get their budgets in order, sometimes
by slashing public funding, later emerged elsewhere around Europe.
In Madrid this weekend, marchers from the north, south, east and west descended on Puerta del Sol plaza on Saturday evening.
For hours, demonstrators
shouted, jumped, sang and waved white handkerchiefs. Their most
dramatic moment, though, may have been their quietest: when they held
their hands aloft, silently, in a "silent shout" before erupting in
cheers.
The crowd is expected to
return. The government has approved three more days of protests in
Madrid, meaning similar scenes could play out into the middle of the
week.
The number of
demonstrators in Madrid over the weekend appeared to be slightly fewer
than those who had gathered in the same spot -- in what's known as
ground zero of the movement -- a year earlier.
Back then, protesters
encamped in Madrid and other cities made their voices heard. The tens of
thousands of people who turned out in the initial days grew to an
estimated 6 million protesters over the following months, in a nation of
46 million people.
Since then, Occupy camps around the world have come and gone.
The new protests
organized by the May 15 movement are different in at least one key
respect: a new conservative government is now in control, having taken
over in December.
Spain's economic crisis
also has worsened since last year. The nation has slipped back into a
recession, the unemployment rate has risen to 24% overall and more than
50% for those under age 25, and the government has enacted billions of
dollars in austerity cuts, along with some tax hikes, to reduce the
budget deficit.
"We are really tired of
this situation," said Madrid protester Paola Alvarado, a purchasing
agent. "And the new government is the same. They steal our money and
give it to the banks."
Spain's austerity
protests have been largely peaceful to date, with only occasional
clashes between protesters and police, and some arrests in cities like
Barcelona and Valencia.
And prior the latest
protests, the new government -- which has vowed to maintain order and
prevent a repetition of encampments in Madrid and beyond -- urged police
commanders to use "common sense" as to how they dealt with the latest
round of public dissent.
In recent months,
Spanish trade unions, traditionally the protest leaders, have been at
the forefront of demonstrations against the austerity cuts and labor
market reforms, with the May 15 movement barely visible.
"Maybe the most
important thing is it awakened a consciousness, beyond concrete changes,
to make historic change possible," said Jon Aguirre Such, who was a
movement spokesman a year ago but now spends more time on his
architectural cooperative for urban planning.
"I think everyone who
took part in the May 15 movement made history. They can take away from
us many things, but not our memory and our dream," Aguirre said.
The original May 15
movement is credited with helping stop dozens of housing evictions.
Activists pressured bank and court officials to delay or stop
foreclosures on delinquent mortgages.
But Ignacio Urquiza, a
sociologist who has studied the movement for the left-leaning Fundacion
Alternativas, said there has been little big-picture change as to
government policies and operations.
"The demonstrations
didn't do more than expose -- for a brief time -- some issues. But
Spain's economic crisis and political system have not changed. They are
the same as last year," he said.
Source: CNN News