Biggest protest in Spain against Catalan amnesty law draws 170,000

On Saturday, over 170,000 people marched through Madrid in the largest demonstration yet against an amnesty law agreed to by Spain’s Socialists in order to form a government following Catalonia’s 2017 secessionist bid.

The protest, the latest in a string of anti-amnesty demonstrations around the country, took place two days after Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez secured a four-year term with the support of Catalan and Basque nationalist parties in exchange for consenting to the law.

Protesters, many of whom waved Spanish flags and held posters reading “Sanchez traitor” and “Don’t sell Spain,” marched against the measure, which four judicial associations, opposition political parties, and business leaders have argued endangers the rule of law and the separation of powers.

Authorities put the number of demonstrators at 170,000.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the opposition conservative People’s Party, and Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, also attended the march which was organised by civil groups.

After the rally, hundreds of people protested in the motorway near the Moncloa Palace, the prime minister’s residence in Madrid. The A6 road was closed for about an hour during the protest but later reopened after the police cleared the area.

A small protest was held outside the Spanish Embassy in London.

The amnesty will cover about 400 people involved in the independence bid that came to a head in 2017, including separatists but also police involved in clashes with activists.

The independence referendum was declared illegal by the courts and resulted in Spain’s worst political crisis for decades.

The amnesty will be the largest in Spain since the 1977 blanket amnesty for crimes committed during the Francisco Franco dictatorship, and the first amnesty law approved in the European Union since 1991, according to Spain’s CSIC research council.

Sanchez, who won a parliamentary vote to form a new government on Thursday by 179 votes in favour and 171 against, has defended the law saying an amnesty would help to defuse tensions in Catalonia.

Protesters, including neo-Nazi groups, have held rowdy demonstrations outside the Socialist headquarters in Madrid for 15 nights consecutively since the deal was announced. There have been clashes with police which left officers and demonstrators injured but in general the protests have been peaceful.

In a survey by Metroscopia in mid-September, around 70% of respondents – 59% of them Socialist supporters – said they were against the idea of an amnesty.