San Sebastián (EFE) It has been summoned by the Red de Acogida a migrantes de Irun to protest the annulled police order that offered days off for arrests.
Nearly two hundred people gathered this afternoon in the Plaza del Ensanche in the border city, in front of the National Police Corps building. Part of its perimeter was cordoned off and guarded by Ertzaintza agents.
During the protest, which has passed without incident, the participants have displayed a banner with the logo of Irungo Harrera Sarrera, the organizing citizen group, and posters with slogans against racism and in favor of migrants.
Several councilors from the EH Bildu and Elkarrekin-Podemos groups of the Irundarra City Council have taken part in the rally. In addition, members of the Etorkinekin collective that provides support to migrants on the French side of the Bidasoa border attended.
“Cheer up agent! The next one can denounce the trampling of human rights”, “Danger, racist police hunting” and “No to discrimination”, are some of the ironic slogans, in Basque and Spanish, that were displayed on the posters.
There were also others with the sequence “Are they arrested, persecuted, harassed, hunted, deported for having a traffic ticket?” They alluded to the similarity of these sanctions with “the administrative fault” that involves “not having papers.”
The concentrates have been in front of the police station for around a quarter of an hour chanting slogans such as “No one is illegal”, “Right to free movement” or “Euskal Herria, a welcoming town”. Later, two spokespersons for the Citizen Network, Aizpea Gómez and Aintzane Lasarte, read a statement.
“Hunt for migrants” in Irun
They have denounced “the measure that they intended to implement to reward policemen” from Irun for “the hunting of migrants.” A “very disturbing and serious” news that means “stepping on the fundamental rights” of these people. “It is not new in the Bidasoa region”, they have said.
“We cannot get used to these horrors, it is not legal”, and “we cannot accept it”, said Gómez and Lasarte, one in Spanish and the other in Basque. They have also demanded that the Ministry of the Interior resign those involved and “debug responsibilities in depth.”
Police warrant voided
The Jupol Gipuzkoa union denounced the controversial police order on social networks on June 7. It was going to go into effect on July 1, but it won’t. The Higher Police Headquarters of the Basque Country, upon learning of it, decided to annul it.
A chief inspector of the Irun Local Immigration and Border Brigade was filed for signing said order. In it he offered national police officers days off depending on the number of arrests they made. He did it “in the absence of the commissioner”, according to the Government delegate in the Basque Country, Denis Itxaso.
The entry “Mr. Police, how much am I worth?”, the slogan of a protest in support of migrants in Irun, was first published in EFE Noticias.