Right to Protest 2022-2023: Diagnosis of the Right to Protest

“Defender a quien Defiende” reports 1,184 violations of rights in the context of protests—detentions, fines, threats, impacts on psychophysical integrity, identifications, and/or prosecutions—in a total of 261 cases collected over the past two years.

These figures are the result of monitoring and systematization recorded by the platform in their report “Right to Protest 2022-2023: Diagnosis of the Right to Protest,” presented on Thursday morning at the General Council of Spanish Lawyers in Madrid. The investigation combines the analysis of quantitative data with contributions from individuals and expert organizations in the field, such as Amnistía Internacional or Red Jurídica.  

The investigation also alerts and analyzes the tools used by the State to silence social protest. Some are well-known, such as the vague provisions of the Citizen Security Law, better known as the Gag Law, or the Penal Code. Others are more novel, such as police infiltration into social movements or the use of spyware against civil society actors.

“Defender a quien Defiende” highlights its concern about the repression suffered by the environmental movement, with Futuro Vegetal (FV) as a paradigmatic case of repression within the analyzed social cycle: in the 43 cases monitored regarding this social movement, 159 violations of rights have been recorded. Among these violations, 69 detentions stand out, in some cases with excessive use of force. Thirty of the detentions of FV activists occurred during April 2023, and twenty-two were detained during December of the same year in a state police operation due to their involvement in the collective.