A peacfull demonstration, blocking parliament in Madrid was confronted with police violence. 100.000 people protested on September 25 against austerity politics in Spain. Special riot units from Policia Nacional attacked. It took some time before people resisted.
Tens of thousands of people from all over Spain converged on the capital Sept. 25 to surround and occupy the Congress. More than 1,300 members of the police were awaiting them as all access to the area near the Congress was shut off. Dissidents filled Madrid’s streets to protest recent cuts to education, the health system and pensions, plus the increase of the sales tax to 20 percent. The Spanish government is carrying out these austerity measures to help pay off the 100 billion euro bailout delivered to national banks this past summer by the European Union. Galvanized by the government’s actions, social movements and unions have mobilized demanding a referendum on the austerity process and a new constitution among other things.
As the concentration grew in the late evening around the Fuente de Neptuno, a few blocks from the Congress, the police reacted by cordoning areas of the protest and dividing it into smaller sections.