• Protest in Cibeles Civil society demonstration overflows the center of Madrid against the amnesty: "Not in my name!"
  • Album The images of the massive demonstration against the amnesty in Madrid

The demonstration called by civil society this Saturday in Madrid against the amnesty has exceeded its own expectations of success. Organizers estimate attendance at around one million people. The Government Delegation has quantified the participation at 170,000 people, more than double the 80,000 it estimated last Sunday at the rally called by the PP.

No politicians spoke. Because neither was the call, led by Foro Libertad y Alternativa, Unión 78, Foro España Cívica, Cataluña Suma, Pie en Pared, S'ha Acabat!, NEOS, Association for Tolerance, Catalan Civic Coexistence, From Spanish to Spanish for the Constitution, OLE (Another Electoral Law), Resist Spain, New Spirit of Ermua and a hundred civic organizations that already promoted another rally in Cibeles on January 21 under the slogan 'For Spain, Democracy and the Constitution'.

But there were eight speeches, which drew great ovations in Madrid's Plaza de Cibeles, although the demonstrators extended to Colón, Atocha, the Puerta de Alcalá and the Gran Vía.

Julia Calvet, president of S'ha Acabat!A. NAVARRETE

Julia Calvet: "Don't let them abandon us"

The president of S'Ha Acabat!, Julia Calvet, opened the speeches with an appeal for young people to continue "mobilised" in an "exemplary" way in the streets against the draft Amnesty Law, which will have to pass through the Cortes in the coming months after the pact between the PSOE and the Catalan separatists.

As a representative of an association that has been the object of recurrent harassment in Catalan universities, Calvet took the microphone to ask the institutions "with sufficient power" to act: "That they do not abandon us, that they pick up the phone and stop the coup".

Venezuelan journalist Miguel Henrique Otero.A. NAVARRETE

Miguel Henrique Otero: "The idea that there were limits is no longer valid"

Venezuelan journalist Miguel Henrique Otero compared, "despite the immense differences between the legal system of Spain and Venezuela," the situation of both countries. He warned against those who, at the time, "relativized the seriousness of what was happening" and thought "that they have already reached the limits and cannot go any further."

"It turns out that the idea that there were boundaries that couldn't be crossed was no longer valid. Today the institutions are occupied by plugged-in and incompetent party members," he summarized, to ensure that between Spain and Venezuela he appreciates "similar procedures, similar brazenness and a similar capacity to lie, which became the most evident policy of that power that decided to perpetuate itself at the cost of anything."

Professor Félix Ovejero, at the Cibeles demonstration against the amnesty.A. NAVARRETE

Félix Ovejero: "The PSOE is ideologically dead"

The professor and columnist of EL MUNDO, Félix Ovejero, addressed the many "socialists" he said were meeting in the Plaza de Cibeles, among whom he cited himself as heir to a social-democratic tradition. A tradition, in his opinion, already orphaned now.

"The PSOE is ideologically dead, and well dead," he diagnosed, appealing to the socialists "who rebel in the face of indignity, who are ashamed of the party that was once theirs." "It's up to them to find their place elsewhere," Ovejero said.

In his speech, Ovejero also recalled the role of Miquel Iceta in the constitutionalist demonstrations of 2017. "He refused to call in the first demonstration, in the second he was jumping the fences about to break his chrism to appear in the photos with the Spanish flag. But we were finally together, and it was good," he recalled, lamenting the change: "Today everything has changed and the laws are written by criminals."

Conchita Martín, victim of ETA.A. NAVARRETE

Conchita Martín: "Governing a country requires doing it for everyone"

Conchita Martín, widow of Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Antonio Blanco, murdered by ETA in Madrid in 2000, expressed herself in her speech against the idea of the "wall" that Pedro Sánchez himself erected during his investiture.

In his speech, Martín called for true "freedom", without laws that establish inequality and that favour coexistence in Spain. "Governing a country requires doing it for everyone," she said to close her speech, visibly emotional and tearfully leaving the stage.

Andrés Trapiello: "Amnesty is a moral and indecent mockery"

Another of the most celebrated speeches of the morning was that of the writer and also columnist of EL MUNDO Andrés Trapiello, who took the floor to portray Pedro Sánchez's "gaslighting" strategy to pass off those opposed to amnesty as "crazy". Amid applause, he cheered the "quixotic" spirit of those gathered in Cibeles and its surroundings and issued a warning to the President of the Government: "An impossible awaits you, to convince Spaniards that white is black."

Trapiello defined the amnesty as a "moral and indecent mockery" and finally shouted the slogan of the demonstration: "That outrage, not in my name! No amnesty, no self-determination."

Albert Boadella: "It me up!"

From a distance, the organization issued a message from playwright Albert Boadella, who warned of Spain's path to "a dictatorship." "It me up!" he said about the fact that his career began fighting against a "military dictatorship" and now he has to battle against a "progressive dictatorship."

Portuguese MEP Paulo Rangel.A. NAVARRETE

Paulo Rangel: "Europe is with you, with freedom and the rule of law"

The Portuguese MEP of the Social Democratic Party, Paulo Rangel, also drew applause, with energy and rallying tone: "Europe is with you, with freedom and the rule of law," he shouted in front of numerous European Union flags, which filled the first rows of the demonstration.

"In all my life as a jurist, as a politician, as a citizen, I have never seen a democracy in which it can be accepted that parliamentarians are going to supervise the courts and the judiciary," said Rangel, who defined these commissions agreed by the PSOE and Junts as "a line that cannot be crossed".

"I promise you that in the European Parliament, in Brussels, in all the countries of Europe, we are going to support you to resist and we are not going to let Spain, due to political opportunism, cease to be a world reference of freedom, democracy and coexistence," Rangel concluded, stressing that the Amnesty Law "is dangerous for liberal democracy. for the rule of law and also for the unity of Spain."

Andrés Trapiello and Fernando Savater, who closed the event.A. NAVARRETE

Fernando Savater: "The first step of a resistance that has to continue"

The philosopher Fernando Savater closed the speeches of the demonstration in Madrid against the amnesty by defining it as "the first step of a resistance that has to continue".

Highly acclaimed, Savater's speech ironically claimed that Carles Puigdemont must be "escorted", in reference to the Catalan verb that translates to 'listen'. "I think it's fine: we have to escort him, take him to Alcalá-Meco and leave him there," he finished to applause.

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