The gagging law turns 5 years old

Cartoon of 04/07/2020 in CTXT

The Organic Law on Citizen Security excreted by the PP, better known as the "Gag Law", came into force on 1 July 2015. At its young age of two years, thousands of people had already tasted it. In successive years that number would only increase. Now, on its shameful fifth anniversary, 230 organisations are calling for an end to it are calling for an end to it and new legislation to guarantee human rights.

The Gag Law, like so many other other important pSOE campaigned hard on it, promising to repeal it. They did not promise it in a soft way, no. They were very forceful. They were very forceful in squeezing the promise. They were going to repeal it, no matter what, in the first minute of taking office.

As time went by, with the departure of the PP from government, we gradually returned to the routine of the eternal rollercoaster of current affairs, which tends to bury anything, no matter how important it may seem to us.

The voice of the street. Cartoon of 17/03/2018 in CTXT

What was shaping up to be a very active social movement against the Gag Law joined other street protests, but the slowdown came and some critics became lukewarm or disappeared due to bias. Only the most militant collectives continued to be active.

A lot of vignettes have been drawn about the Mordaza, to the point of squeezing out almost every possible metaphor. Here you can take a look a good handful of the ones I did. In 2015, more than 40 of us cartoonists took part in a very cool street exhibition that would later move to other places.

#DrawingGag, an exhibition on the ground
#DrawingGag, Collective of graphic humour about the Gag Law. Exhibition on the street.

But not only that, cartoons were also shown in a Parliamentary Day on the Gag Law.

Cartoons by cartoonists at the Parliamentary Day on the #GagGagLaw
10 points without gag in the Congress building. Cartoons by Atxe, Ben, Iñaki and Frenchy, JR Mora, LaRataGris, Lumpen, Mart Yuls, Pedripol, Ximi and Ykram.

Not to forget

I can think of no better "tribute" to this engrendro with the cynical wording "Seguridad Ciudadana" on its fifth birthday than to list again some of the vehement phrases of those who continued to embrace and give continuity to a law that allowed a shameful regression in rights such as freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, information and demonstration.