Spain: two photo-journalists arrested and defamed in clear assault against free press

Because to photograph police brutality is no crime
free arrested photo-journalists!

Spanish police forces arrested yesterday two photographers and journalists. The arrested are Raúl Capín, collaborator with Diario Independiente Digital and Mundo Obrero (medium of the Communist Party), and Adolfo Luján (freelance).

The major accusation against Capín, which seems totally made up (the usual), is aggression against police forces. Another accusation is that he would have helped to run away some people whom police tried to arrest. The alleged acts would have happened while he covered popular protests in Madrid on February 23rd and April 25th.

Luján is also being accused of aggression against police forces on April 25th (the usual accusation that police throws around taking advantage of the Spanish penal code, which considers police testimony as "evidence" of much greater weight than that of any common witness, not needing any actual evidence to back up their claims). He's also being accused of defamation for writing at Mundo Obrero that the rioters on that journey appeared to be plain clothes police agents.

Police harasses Rául Capín while working

Prior to the arrest, some far-right Spanish media, ABC, El Mundo, have been carrying a campaign against them, accusing them to be "radicals infiltrated" among the press.

Defense lawyers think that it is a warning message against independent media, because both photographers are well known for reporting without self-censorship on popular demonstrations of all kinds. They had been previously harassed by police.

A protest has been called for today at 18:00. The exact location I could not find out because the reference site tomalaplaza.net seems to be overloaded, so high is the popular interest on these clearly political arrests.

Sources[es]: Naiz Info, DID, Mundo Obrero.

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