There is not a single tent or protester left in Puerta del Sol. In the early hours of this Tuesday, agents of the National Police, in collaboration with the Municipal Police, have evicted the Puerta del Sol encampment after 38 days occupying the square. According to the Government Delegation, the intervention concluded without incidents, despite the arrest of two people for resistance and disobedience to authority. For their part, those from the encampment denounce “a violent police intervention.”
Just a few hours later, on Tuesday afternoon, about 500 people marched down Alcalá street towards Cibeles square to protest the eviction. As night fell, about 150 protesters continued their protest in the same Puerta del Sol, where the Police kept them isolated to prevent them from moving. Moments of tension were experienced, culminating in police charges and rubber bullet shots against the protesters. During the protest, there was a minute of silence for the death of Maricarmen, whom they did not forget throughout the route. Chants against the Police, the Government, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, were also heard. “They have all failed us. From this encampment, a new way of organizing against traditional politics must emerge,” complains one of the organizers of the demonstration, who prefers to remain anonymous for fear, he says, of possible reprisals.
During the last weeks, "the objective of the encampment had completely changed," he explains to us. They describe a situation completely different from what gave rise to the movement: “Since the unions left the square, the focus completely changed and, although we have organized great, it has ended up becoming a space to welcome people with many needs.” The focus has now completely changed: “We must go to the neighborhood nodes to continue fighting against evictions and organize the November eleventh strike.” From being a space for the defense of decent housing and for the approval of the royal decrees that ended up leading to the electoral call, the encampment would have become “a place to feed, care for, and shelter homeless people, who have been evicted or who do not have papers.”
From the encampment, they denounce that, during the 38 days they have remained there, "we have become a service for people without money. We have been the ones who have given food and attention to many people, when the institutions should have done it. By evicting Sol, they are leaving people without resources completely abandoned." So much so that, during the early hours of Tuesday, when the campers were evicted, teams from social services also participated to assist homeless people.
"I myself have been kicked out of my house and I don't have a job. This encampment has done more for me than social services," a 48-year-old man confesses to us as he walks towards Cibeles. When we leave him protesting in Sol, he still doesn't know where he is going to sleep that night.
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