Proletarians of all countries: " shut the f*ck up!"

Spains new laws on not-so free speech

There was great uproar in the Spanish press when last week Tuesday the government approved the Action Plan for Democracy, an initiative aimed at improving transparency and ensuring “truthful information” through 31 measures, including amending the Penal Code.

The initiative is structured around three axes: expanding and improving government information, enhancing media transparency and strengthening the transparency of the legislature and electoral system. It also proposes tightening the rules of procedure of the parliament to establish a sanction system for MPs who fail to submit their asset declarations or do so with “false or incomplete” information, as well as for political parties that do not transparently disclose their accounts. A registry to distinguish media from “pseudomedia” is proposed to be set up and will be managed by the National Securities Market Commission.

According to prime minister. Sanchez, “this plan is aimed at promoting the freedom of the media and information professionals.”

Critics in the newspapers were quick to point out that this amounts to a new

“gag law"( Ley de Mordaza)to put an end to the media uncomfortable for the government.

Pedro Sánchez previously announced at the PSOE's( The socialist workers party) 40th Federal Congress in 2021the repeal of this“Citizen Security Law,” better known as the ‘gag law,’.The ‘gag law’ was approved by Mariano Rajoy's PP government in 2015, with criticism from the PSOE opposition that submitted the measure to the Constitutional Court. In November 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled and upheld the law by a majority. The law came mainly because of street protests against the Rajoy government as a result of the crisis and mass evictions. Ultimately, these street protests were the driving force behind the success of the new far-left party Podemos.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

After five days of reflection following the accusations against his wife, Begoña Gómez, the Prime Minister announced that he would be presenting a series of measures aimed primarily at controlling critical media and digital media platforms such as X.