DEFENDERS OF GIBRALTAR © 2014: February 2014

Human Dignity Group for a dignified Border - protest 30/01/2014

The second demonstration or protest was held in La Linea side of the Frontier.

The group consists of citizens from both sides of the border and also a lot of cross frontier workers from all over Europe!

The first protest was held in December and attracted over 200 people but the one held in La Linea was an even better achievement attracting support from over One Thousand people!

Photos - courtesy - Alvaro Marquez Diaz, M.D. Kiu - mdkiu.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gibraltare%C3%B1os-Y-Espa%C3%B1oles-Unidos/460159850691604
Juan Pecino - Gibraltarian Unionist

Diego Cañamero Sat.

The Mayoress of La Linea - Gemma Araujo Morales.

Manuel Fernandez with the sign

With Miguel Angel Zoilo Guzmán, Ángel Villar and Mari Carmen Diaz Quiñones.

Oppostion Member of Parliament in Gibraltar Mr Netto

Juan Uceda

Miguel Angel Zoilo Guzmán.

Nuria Gomez

Samuel Fernandez - Radio Bahia Libre

The crowd

So all in all citizens are starting to be brave and join in all the different ways to get our voices heard and forgetting the political side of things and coming together as Human Beings first and foremost!

This goes to show the European Union, United Nations of Human Rights and all governments that the people on both sides only wish to have a frontier that offers free movement no more and no less!

All people in the protest were sending out one clear message to the SPANISH GOVERNMENT and that was stop using the frontier as a weapon for political gain! You must never allow a country or their perspective government to ever use human beings and the ability to oppress to prove any point!

The people are rising and in Spain this is something very hard to do when people live in fear of the para-military forces! But if anything they have shown to be brave and courageous in the midst of knowing that many have been hit for standing up for their rights! More impressive was the fact that people from Gibraltar stood with them in solidarity!

We are all fighting for the same cause - a dignified frontier - free movement as promised in the European Union! This is our right!

Interesting and great times ahead that as a people we all join together no matter our nationalities!

GBC News covered the event - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA3CuS0cI4A
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In Spanish for our followers - http://www.lalineadigital.es/2014/01/avance-casi-mil-personas-se-concentran-en-contra-de-las-colas-y-por-una-frontera-humanitaria/

Imagen de la manifestación de esta misma tarde, hace unos minutos

Nada ha tenido que ver la manifestación que se ha llevado a cabo en la tarde de hoy con respecto a la que se llevó a cabo hace unos meses dentro de Gibraltar. la poca publicidad y las condiciones climatológicas jugaron entonces una mala pasada. Esta tarde la respuesta ha sido mayor que en aquella ocasión, y se calcula, por parte de la propia organización, a cargo de la Plataforma ‘Por una Frontera Humanitaria’, que han sido cerca de mil personas las que han acudido a esta protesta, aunque como es habitual, comenzará el baile de números dependiendo del punto de vista y los intereses de quien lo mire.

Ha comenzado a las seis de la tarde, y han acudido vecinos, políticos y empresarios de ambos lados de la Verja. Se ha colocado un atril, sobre el que se han subido algunas de las personas que forma parte de esta iniciativa, como es la Asociación de Trabajadores en Gibraltar ASCTEG. Salvador Molina ha sido uno de los presentes en el acto junto a su portavoz JJ Udeda. Han estado personalidades como la alcaldesa de La Línea, Gemma Araujo (PSOE) y Angel Villar (PA), cuyos partidos habían mostrado ya con anterioridad su apoyo a esta protesta. Su compromiso ha quedado plasmado con la presencia en el acto.

Además ha estado presente la Asociación de la Pequeña y Mediana empresa (APYMELL) que es otro de los grandes perjudicados por las colas, ya que se ha producido un importante descenso de ventas en la ciudad a tenor de los problemas de los gibraltareños para salir, y por tanto hacer las compras en la ciudad como ha sido tradicional.

Uno de los carteles que se podía leer en la tribuna podía de forma clara “políticos inhumanos” mientras que otra, más centrada, decía “no juguéis con el pan de nuestros hijos”.

Han ido tomando la palabra diferentes representantes en un acto que ha durado casi 45 minutos. Se ha realizado una campaña de divulgación que ha tenido mayor respuesta que las anteriores, aunque aún está lejos de ser un reflejo del problema que padecen 6.000 trabajadores españoles que acuden a diario a la colonia a trabajar. Hubiera sido lógico que visto el problema que padecen los vecinos que acuden a trabajar, hubiera sido mayor la respuesta.

Imágenes: Antonio Cañete

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Not long ago it was hard to get people to speak out and stand up and now we have seen many demonstrations and protest in the last two years on this common issue.

It is not right to have queues created on purpose no matter the excuses we who live here and there in Spain know the truth!

So if in doubt EU Commission should learn from their mistake when they visited last time! Do not talk to the politicians - Speak to the people affected! Speak to the people groups who are fighting for their rights to be heard!

Anne-Marie Struggles

The Brussels Protest Trip by Concerned Citizens 27/01/14-30/01/14
It has been an honour and a privilege that 9 of us joined in this trip as individual concerned citizens with the rest of the 41 other people. All 9 of us went in our individual capacity not representing any group, organisation or political affiliation!
It was very cold, very tiring but a wonderful challenging experience. I would say the most challenging part of the whole trip was trying to convey the correct strong message - that is the problem of the border queues and how it affects us all in different ways. But highlighting the HUMANITARIAN part of it all. We worked hard to avoid involvement at a political level which is something for the politicians to solve. But we wanted everyone to see and hear from us how the queues caused on purpose was inhumane and that as human beings this was unacceptable behaviour by the Spanish Government.
It was extremely enlightening experience to say the very least. It was very surprising to find that Brussels being the very core and heart of the European Union were actually lacking knowledge and awareness about OUR Gibraltar and the situation of the border with Spain. However, on speaking to multitude of European nationals, we found them to be very open and intrigued in hearing our message.
The one aspect that struck the people the most was the "HUMANITARIAN" message we conveyed on behalf of many people - not only those ten thousand that signed the petition.
Where language was a hindrance in our communication with some people who did not speak English, Spanish or French, the photos in the leaflets (that we were handing out) actually helped us tell the true story without words! With the help of the leaflets we were able to give the full thrust of the problems faced at the border with Spain daily!
We all knew that the trip to Brussels was not a holiday but was going to be a tough two days of hard work! With that in mind most of us worked very hard indeed to get the message across.
On the day after we arrived - we had the start of one of the three protests that were organised for us. First we had the protest outside the EU Parliament from 9.00am to 1.00pm and although the leaflets and the banners arrived quite late, at about mid-day, our passion and determination did not falter! We still as loudly as we could made our message heard with chants and songs and talking to those around. We were joined by most of the MEPs at the start before they went into parliament to see and listen to the presentation prepared by Caine Sanchez our Spokesperson. It was wonderful to meet up again with many of the familiar MEPs that had joined and supported our own protest in November in London. We thanked them for coming and supporting us again and for making time to meet the whole group of concerned citizens which was the group that organised this protest this time in Brussels.
While we were doing the protest and speaking to people and the media, 6 of the group went into parliament to give the presentation with our own media and some MEPs.
Once our long awaited leaflets arrived we truly overtook the streets around the EU Parliament. We were out with so much energy and pride that we did not miss anyone passing without trying to talk about the border situation! The distribution of the photo evidence and information was very well received and many people stopped to question and learn more! It was confusing at times as we were alternating between 3 languages all the time and the languages we did not know the photos spoke for itself.
We all welcomed the questions and enjoyed the opportunity to tell our side of the story! It was even more encouraging to hear later how successful the presentation was and how much those presents were unaware of the problem and how it affected everyone crossing the border. Although the presentation also gave the chance to raise other issues that we face with Spanish government like the incursions etc. So all in all the message was well received inside and outside of the EU Parliament. The petition was also handed in to be considered by the petition commission.
After Lunch we all met up again to make our way to the Spanish Embassy for our second protest of the day. Once again it was great to be able to share our emotional but powerful message of the inhumane treatment at the border with Spain that Spanish Government were using as a weapon for political gain! It was another great opportunity also to continue to distribute the leaflets to passers by. While the protest was on some of us handed out the leaflets again to many European Nationals and others. The most encouraging part was when one of the group was given the opportunity to hand in the leaflet and letter to the Spanish Embassy. The other encouraging part was to see MEP Graham Watson stand again with us for part of the protest for a second time! For this we thank him immensely. We finished the protest 30 minutes earlier than planned, due to many of us being far too cold, tired in fact exhausted. So we all made our way back to the hotel to rest before supper.
The next day, we were refreshed and renewed with more passion and enthusiasm to deliver our message in what was going to be the third and final protest. This time the venue was outside the EU Commission and although the day was much colder we braved the weather and once again enjoyed the opportunity to protest and distribute the leaflets to more passers by. While some of us protested with chants and songs and a little dance and fun, some of us were busy speaking to people while handing out the leaflets. This second day actually attracted more journalist from Brussels and as such there was plenty of opportunities for many to be interviewed by all the different journalist and TV station that came to cover the story of our protest. There was only one incident during this protest in which a Spanish national - a middle aged man came up to us while we were all protesting to shout out Viva Espana! But thanks to the professionalism fo the Brussels police who dealt with the individual swiftly and efficiently with no other consequence.
So all in all a tremendous success! Many thanks to Caine Sanchez for organising the trip and many thanks to all of us who together achieved in getting our voices heard for OUR GIBRALTAR!
The difficulty now is to keep up the pressure. There has been a lot of hard work done by all who attended the trip and also many others who worked in the background to support this event.
One lesson for us all to learn and that stood out the most was the actual lack of knowledge about us as a people and a country. We all need to strive together to continue getting our message of who we are and what Gibraltar is all about. SO we need to increase our PR side of our story. This is something we all can take an active part on - we can all use social media - photos, videos etc to get our message across. We need to ensure that people everywhere know about us as a people, our culture, our history and our community as whole - let us all show what Gibraltar is all about and what we can offer people so they visit us.
On a different note what became apparent to us all was the lack of action by our UK Governments and the Foreign Office and how they really need to do more to stand up to the bullying tactics by Spain! So all of us no matter what group or organisations or political parties need to keep up the pressure and as and when possible stand together in UNITY!
Let us all remember the strong message we need to portray and that is that we are NOT against Spanish people but rather we are against how the Spanish Government continue to bully us in so many ways! It is them that are stopping or hindering our right to Free Movement! But remember that we also need to raise awareness of all the other ways and tactics that the Spanish Government use to deliver a negative picture about us as a people and our country!
So we have a choice to get our voices heard - so let us all continue!
Photos courtesy of Tommy Finlayson and Trevor Bickerstaff

Outside EU Parliament