Latest update: 10/06/2011
Spain: Los Indignados
Young Spaniards have been driven to despair and disgust in the face of a never-ending financial crisis. They are angry at what they view as ‘corrupt’ bankers and politicians and call themselves the ‘Indignados’. With their outrage they took over Madrid’s enormous Puerta del Sol and set up camp, staging a sit-in the size of a village.
24 hours with Madrid’s ‘Indignant’ youths | 21H49: Overview of the Madrid protest camp in Puerta del Sol as protesters hold their nightly rally. Many participants work during the day, but the crowd swells in the evening.
23H09: Activists participate in the daily general assembly. Its key principle of unanimous decision-making ensures debates until late into the night. 23H21: There will be little sleep for the hundreds of youths who spend the night at the protest camp. Christian and Karina (both 21-year-old students from Bogota, Colombia) join their 18-year-old friend Rosa from Madrid for intense political discussion. 23H35: Protesters have set up commissions to deal with different aspects of the protest camp. Members from the legal commission, most of them law students, are holding a late meeting. Their main task is to provide legal advice to protesters. 00H43: A Spanish activist (foreground) talks on Skype with a French activist (background). The Madrid protest camp hopes to inspire similar movements across Europe. 02H25: Raul, 32, is reading an essay by Stephane Hessel, the title of which translates as "Time for Outrage!". This short essay by a French concentration camp survivor and resistance fighter has become a bestseller in both France and Spain. 02H57: A demonstrator shows a "No Beer" sign at the Madrid protest camp, urging campers to avoid excess drinking. Protesters are keen to portray their movement as a serious political contender and not an improvised party. 03H36: Most protesters eventually get some sleep, even without a tent or sleeping bag. 08H32: The camp’s Infrastructure Commission lends blankets and sleeping bags to anyone asking for them, but some protesters apparently prefer the comfort of a cardboard box. 09H11: Protesters read the morning news in daily papers provided for free by the makeshift camp library. 09H18: Commuters exiting the Sol metro station into the protest camp. Sol is one of the main interchanges in the Madrid subway system. 10H01: It’s rather hard to catch up with sleep in the morning, as the unforgiving Spanish sun turns tents and sleeping bags into furnaces. 10H43: Inside one of the three tents where protesters collect and redistribute food donations. Ana, 19, was among the first demonstrators to storm Puerta del Sol square on May 15. She feels that Spain’s political system doesn’t represent her. 14H41: All types of activities slow down in the middle of the day as protesters take cover from the sun. Here a protester can be seen having a smoke in the Arts Commission tent.
15H05: Two Spanish girls are making a banner in the name of the “15M” movement, referring to the date when youths spontaneously stormed Madrid's main square. Making these banners is one of the main tasks of the Arts Commission. 20H07: As the sun goes down, the rally starts to pick up steam. Dozens of protesters leave the Puerta del Sol camp to walk toward the Spanish parliament to protest against the raising of the legal retirement age. 20H15: Protesters remain peaceful. When confronted by police, they shout slogans for 20 minutes before turning back and returning to the camp. 20H23: A young woman shouting slogans against the raising of the legal retirement age. Despite their efforts to attract more middle-aged and elderly people, most of the protesters encamped at Puerta del Sol are under the age of 35. 20H26: Unlike the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, there have been no vicious police beatings of protesters. These police officers may have helmets, but they have none of the heavy equipment of their counterparts in the Arab world. 20H46: Living in a makeshift camp doesn’t prevent some protesters from arranging a little, cosy, home-away-from-home. | |
