Spain's hologram protest: Thousands join virtual march against new gag law | Hacker News Reader

Spain's hologram protest: Thousands join virtual march against new gag law

independent.co.uk

148 pointskurren25 comments

This is an absolutely genius exploration of new forms of critique. We now live in a world in which marching on the streets, political protests, and demonstrations are immediately met with a militarized response sanctioned by the FUD of terrorism. The shift, the first protest in this new era, was likely 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, WA. Since then, the whole enterprise has become a game or dance: people march on the streets, the police crack down and drum up support for new, better military gear. Anonymous, for whatever your stance on their questionable politics, was interesting precisely because it offered an alternative to this dance. A hologram protest is another interesting approach.

For the little or lot it's worth, filming and photographing police activity in public is rather strongly protected in the U.S., whereas the Gag Law sets fines of €30,000 for doing so.

It may be the last bastion of true freedom in a Free Speech Zone world, but it's no minor difference.

A lot of laws in Spain those years seem to be created with the only purpose of either gaining time (for prescription of former crimes for politicians) or to guarantee the creation of a new "damage" that could be claimed (by friends or family of politicians) and billed to spaniards later if the law is repealed (as is expected to be, of course).

An example: Spaniards will pay >1400 millions/euro in the next years to a private enterprise for the right to stop hundred of unexpected earthquakes in some heavily populated points of the mediterranean coast. Earthquakes that were linked with the activity of this enterprise, a personal bet of some politicians.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/10365...

https://www.thespainreport.com/6623/hundreds-earthquakes-cau...

We have new laws that grant hunting animals in national parks, cutting down trees, fracking, etc... In the future, when people think about to repeal the law, a miriad of complaints for lost profits will probably be filled by multinationals and major landowners. We'll need to pay someone for the right of repeal those crazy laws. Is, most probably, a business.

The worst one is: For carrying out assemblies or meetings in public spaces – 100 to 600€ fine.

http://revolution-news.com/spanish-congress-approves-draconi...

How do you define a meeting in a public space?

Sadly this brings back memories from the old days.

Speaking from those dark times, it would be enough if the police would spot a group of say three people talking together in the street.

I was unaware of this law.

Sad dark times seem to be ahead.

As a Portuguese that still lived the early days of the new democracy, I know quite well what living under Salazar meant. And Franco's ruling wasn't any different, if worse.

Laws like these just bring back memories of those days.

It's a pretty good idea imo . I don't share most of the complains about the law, but the one they refer to "protest in front of public buildings" is unbelievable. For instance, according to this, Transferwise could have never lead a naked march on Wall Street

Just the fact that they plan to charge "up to 600,000 euro" for protesting should be the reason to kill the whole law. Such a fine can only be useful in deterring free speech. It's not going to deter terrorism or other stuff like that.

To me, this indicates the government of Spain envisions more things to protest coming soon. Not a good sign.

Anyone know how this was done?

It looks like a video projected on a transparent screen, similar to the variant of Pepper's Ghost used in several concerts recently.

Why is the Spanish Congress doing this? What are the long term goals?

Spain has 25%+ unemployment and has for a long time. Measures like this are to prevent riots (this is their logic - not making a statement about the validity of the law itself)

Laws don't prevent riots. If anything the opposite, they bottle anger until it explodes. But they do make it easier to demonize rioters.

Sometimes they do. For example, in Spain, they protested with holograms instead of with their bodies because of a law the banned protests outside of public buildings.

This is not a valid example.

You said it. They protested, pacifically, and now they can't. A protest is a basic right that is (was?) granted by the constitution. When pacific protest is automatically equaled to riot, just because, then we have a big problem here: Constitution is not legal anymore.

That's not a valid example. The laws didn't stop any protest, instead they caused a hologram protest — that protest wouldn't have happened at all, were it not for the laws.

Something I'm thinking is unrelated to preventing riots, is forbidding people to take pictures of or record the police. Why will that be forbidden? ("Photographing or recording police – 600 to 30.000€ fine")

I'm thinking that when one isn't allowed to take pictures of or record the police, then badly behaving policemen can beat up anyone and everyone, and do anything they want, with impunity, since it will be hard to show that the police did anything wrong or who did it.

Prevent the rise of Podemos and other anti-austerity groups, presumably.

Well, the PP (the ones in power now) has been getting increasingly nationalist. In Europe, this is generally the kind of policies that the "new right" has.

This is actually the watered down version of the bill...

Isn't their a law in every developed country that restricts unauthorized meeting of lots of people already? Am I missing something?

Perhaps you meant organized public meeting with a specific purpose?

Having just read some of my countries law( a developed country ) on the subject you are somewhat right.

Public meetings are regulated and must be registered. To qualify, the location, participation and organization must be public. Technically an arranged meeting with your friends in a public space could be considered a public meeting. This probably wasn't the intention of the writers of the law, but interpreting it as it is written, it gets that ridiculous.

Police state

Isn't Spain subject to the European Convention on Human Rights?

  ...and in other news, the United States government is 
  said to be contsructing a new carrier-grade backbone 
  network in anticipation of the expected petabit scale 
  traffic preciptated by an emerging new fad referred to 
  as "hologram flash mobbing."

  When consulted, a panel of scientists suggested instead 
  that it might be more practical to place a very bright
  lightbulb in front of the capitol building. This 
  suggestion preciptated a large spike in hologram traffic
  when a spokesperson for the organization, the swift boat 
  veterans for truth, questioned whether the light bulb
  might shine brighter than the eternal flame at the tomb 
  of the unknown soldier, to which one member of the panel 
  flippantly replied:

  "Well, the inverse square law suggests that if you'd 
   prefer a brighter flame you could always go stand within
   it."

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