Spanish protest movement returns to the streets

Aug 4, 2011, 8:40 GMT

Madrid - Spain's 15-M protest movement, which criticizes unemployment and corruption, staged new rallies overnight, with police preventing more than 1,000 demonstrators from entering Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square.

Police also prevented protesters from entering the parliamentary buildings. Occasional clashes were reported. Radio reports said one person had been detained.

More rallies were announced for Thursday.

The demonstrators were trying to 'retake' the Puerta del Sol after police on Tuesday expelled several dozen protesters who were camping there.

They had stayed on as the last representatives of a protest camp comprising hundreds of people which occupied the square for a month until mid-June.

Similar camps were set up around Spain after the 15-M erupted into the headlines on May 15, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets.

Protests had quieted down in July, but surged again in Madrid this week.

'Politicians do not represent us and cannot go on as they have,' a young female demonstrator said early Thursday.

The movement demands an end to corruption and politicians' financial privileges, and to the influence of financial markets over politics.

The movement emerged largely as a consequence of Spain's 20-per-cent unemployment, the eurozone's highest. Protest rallies have prevented the evictions of dozens of families unable to pay mortgages.