Politicians and police divided over harassment of Madrid security chief

Politicians and police officials are divided over a Tuesday incident in which the Madrid security commissioner was forced to seek refuge inside a downtown bar after a group of around 300 protestors chased him down the street.

The marchers were police officers demonstrating against a decision by the capital’s security department head, José Javier Barbero, to scale down the municipal riot squads (UCS).

Barbero and the municipal police chief, Andrés Serrano, were forced to wait inside a bar near the central Puerta del Sol square until the commissioner’s official car showed up at the door.

“We will not allow an investigation into non-existent crimes in what constitutes some kind of witch-hunt or attempt at coercion”

The acting government of the Popular Party (PP) has played down the incident. Acting Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz said Barbero was “getting a taste of his own medicine,” alluding to public harassment suffered by PP politicians in recent years over home evictions.

Fernández Díaz reminded Barbero that the latter had earlier defended such actions, known popularly in Spanish as escraches, as freedom of expression.

“Now that he is the Madrid City security delegate, now that he is an authority figure and part of the ‘caste,’ what used to be freedom of expression has morphed into a criminal act, even an act that could be construed as promoting hate,” said the acting minister.

The regional premier of Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes – also of the PP – told the Cope radio station that she would have liked to have heard some kind of condemnation from “this series of conglomerates that form the groups that support Podemos,” back when the public harassment was aimed at PP politicians.

Back then, said Cifuentes, these groups defended such acts “as legitimate freedom of expression. But when it happens to them, it is fascism.”

Ever since last May’s municipal elections, the city council has been controlled by Ahora Madrid, a leftist alliance that includes Podemos.

The Socialist Party, Ciudadanos and Podemos came out in defense of the security commissioner, saying that they oppose any kind of harassment of an elected official.

Concepción Causapié, the Socialist spokeswoman in the Madrid council, said it was “a very serious attack” and asked for an investigation.

Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias condemned any protests that may lead to physical assault, and added that acts aimed at holding politicians accountable “are fine.”

Meanwhile, different municipal police unions expressed conflicting opinions about Tuesday’s protest.

The three groups that organized the rally – the CPPM, CSIT and CSIF – insisted that “it was peaceful at all times” and that the security commissioner’s freedom of movement was never compromised. The demonstration was over Barbero’s plans to eliminate one of the city’s two riot police units.

“The tone of the protest only became angrier when Barbero decided to cross the square with a defiant attitude, and against his bodyguards’ advice to get into his vehicle,” the unions said in a statement. “We will not allow an investigation into non-existent crimes in what constitutes some kind of witch-hunt or attempt at coercion.”

Another union called the incident “an embarrassing spectacle”

But another union, the UPM, said the 300 protestors did not represent the entire police body of 6,130 officers, and called the incident “an embarrassing spectacle.”

This group also condemned “the attempt to politicize the staff, the way our intelligence is being insulted with statements full of unfounded rumors, plus the victim syndrome and the growing ridicule to which some spokespeople are exposing themselves.”

Meanwhile, the APMU union rejected Barbero’s “attempts to make it seem like our colleagues were protesting for ideological reasons, rather than out of labor concerns, which was really the case.”

English version by Susana Urra.