Much has been written on the Gag Law, whose gestation began after the creation of the May 15 Movement and was enacted by the Government’s majority in Parliament. It was rejected by the remaining political parties which have appealed before the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court has finally admitted the appeal.

However, despite thousands of protests, worldwide criticism and the constitutional complaint, this ignominious law is already in force. It directly affects us all who work in the street as we do our interventions in public spaces, without permits, expressing political views, and spreading them over the Internet. 

For all these reasons, we thought the best we could do was to take to the streets on the same day these laws came into force. We went to the neighborhood of Vallecas, to the Plaza de la Constitución (Constitution Square), to express our disagreement with lights and good humor, two weapons that are unknown to the police, and have spared us a lot of trouble so far. We hope they keep not noticing this though they will for sure be watching everything that goes on in the street...

We showed up there with lights, toilet seats and pages selected from a copy of the Constitution which displayed articles related to the use of public space, freedom of speech, and the rights of citizens and immigrants.

The intervention was called The Government Doesn’t Give a Shit About the Spanish Constitution and we worked at two different locations of the square in order to carry it out; thus, we created a stage that served as a graphic, visual reference to what comes to our mind when we hear about such laws.

Within this new legal framework of which we still know nothing about, we cannot even imagine the number of penalties we can suffer for this sort of interventions. There are sure many penalties in store for people like us, even jail sentences...

The photo before the Constitutional Court with the “covered” face is priceless. What a great ending for such an exciting night!

Lastly, if anyone in Madrid needs toilet seats, contact us and will give them away as we have a whole lot.