Spanish Woman Fined $900 for Posting Picture of Police Parked in Handicap Space to Facebook

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A month ago, I published a post titled, The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves – Spain Officially Becomes a Police State, which covered the implementation of the nation’s incredibly authoritarian “gag laws.” Amongst other things, the laws criminalized protesting, including free speech on the internet and “photographing police.” The elements of the law relevant to today’s post are the following:

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Naturally, it didn’t take long for such a law to be used agains the helpless plebs, as an unidentified Spanish woman has been fined $900 for posting a picture of local police parked in a handicapped spot to Facebook.

The Guardian reports:

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Everything You Need to Know About the Greek Crisis and ECB Fascism in Two Paragraphs

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Yanis Varoufakis just sat down for his first interview since resigning as Finance Minister of Greece. He talked frankly with Harry Lambert of the New Statesman. Here are the two most important paragraphs from the transcript.

There is no democracy in Europe. None.

Varoufakis said that Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister and the architect of the deals Greece signed in 2010 and 2012, was “consistent throughout”. “His view was ‘I’m not discussing the programme – this was accepted by the previous [Greek] government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything.

 “So at that point I said ‘Well perhaps we should simply not hold elections anymore for indebted countries’, and there was no answer. The only interpretation I can give [of their view] is, ‘Yes, that would be a good idea, but it would be difficult. So you either sign on the dotted line or you are out.’”

Any questions?

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The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves – Spain Officially Becomes a Police State

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On July 1st, 2015, Spain officially became a police state. There’s simply no other way to put it. The “gag law” passed late last year went into effect on that date, and if you still have any doubt about how extreme and oppressive these laws are, let’s take a quick look at a summary published by The Local:

1) Fines for protesting

Under the new law, anyone who organizes or takes part in an “unauthorized protest” could be fined between €30,000 and €600,000 if the protest takes part near institutions such as the Spanish parliament.

2) Distrupting public events

Disrupting events such as public speeches, sports events or religious ceremonies could face fines of between €600 and €300,000.

3) Botellón

The Spanish tradition of getting together with mates for outdoor drinking sessions looks to be officially over – drinking in public will be hit with fines of €600 under the new law. And teenagers won’t escape – Parents will be held responsible for the payment of their offsprings’ fines.

4) Social media activism

Using Twitter, Facebook or Instagram to call on people to protest will be fined under the new law, an attempt to put paid to the spontaneous protests that have proved very powerful in building the indignado movement.

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