Plaza Mayor closed by police to stop Resistencia Balear food distribution

ALTHOUGH there appears to be an overall decline in the rate of new Covid-19 infections in Mallorca, the organisation known as Resistencia Balear (Balearic Resistance) is at loggerheads with the Balearic Government.
Last Saturday (January 30), even though its Facebook account was suspended due to numerous complaints against its contents, the organisation which accused the social media company of ‘censorship’ went ahead with its threatened demonstration in Palma.
The authorities had approved a demonstration on the understanding that it could only be conducted by people in cars and other enclosed vehicles in order to ensure safe social distancing.
With a ‘rallying call’ “¿Salimos de paseo?” (Are we going for a walk?) however, it appeared likely that many demonstrators would ignore the restriction and this proved to be true with many people turning up on foot despite pleas from the police not to.
This then resulted in the issuing of fines said to amount to more than €140,000 after organisers encouraged people attending to dance to music that they played for them so there were effectively two different breaches of the law, firstly gathering in public and secondly holding a party.
Nothing daunted, at very short notice, a new demonstration was called for Wednesday February 3 in the Plaza Mayor with a different slant which called for those participating to bring food, blankets and items for babies to distribute to those suffering from the current sate of alarm.
Víctor Sánchez a spokesman for Resistencia Balear, explained in a video that there was a right to demonstrate and that people needed food which they were going to distribute.
In the event however, this attempt to shame the Balearic Government into allowing the distribution of the food on humanitarian grounds was unsuccessful as the Government simply sealed off the Plaza Mayor to frustrate the meeting.
Time will tell whether this will be the last of the public protests or whether they will continue at the weekend.
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