The slap in the face that a national police officer gave a demonstrator at a protest in the taxi sector in Seville, which can be seen here, has outraged the left, which has launched itself to ask for explanations from the Ministry of the Interior and the Government. After the slap and the subsequent brief riot, the police arrested two taxi drivers.
For the Andalusian Elite Taxi federation, the police action was “more than questionable”, according to a statement. The federation, immersed in a negotiation with the Andalusian Government for a new regulation of the VTC, which it is feared will favor these multinationals that contribute to making the job precarious, adds that in the images – the video will be evidence in the trials that they are going to take place–– it is clearly seen that there is no provocation and that the police officer attacks one of the taxi drivers, “an action that is what provokes the subsequent riots”.
Multinationals and gag law
The taxi drivers add that they plan to continue demonstrating peacefully to “stop a regulation by the Junta de Andalucía tailored to multinationals whose sole objective is to end the essential public service of the taxi.”
“In what kind of police protocol is it slapping someone who is standing behind a fence? And the biggest thing: do you know who has a trial for attacking authority? Indeed, who receives the slap. Today we ask him formally to the Ministry of the Interior for this,” said Teresa Rodríguez, spokesperson for Adelante Andalucía.
After the police attack, the deputy for Más País, Íñigo Errejón, urged the Government to promote the reform of the so-called Gag Law – the Citizen Security Law –, which is paralyzed in Congress. In his initiative, Errejón points out that it is most likely that the agent “no file will be opened” even though his gesture was “absolutely unnecessary and brutal” and earned him another police officer to fail him, according to Europa Press .
For the spokeswoman for Por Andalucía, Inma Nieto, President Juanma Moreno (PP), “has deceived the taxi sector”: “The regulation of the VTC cannot be to give free rein to these multinationals while leaving the taxi sector unprotected, that they exercise as a public service with regulated prices”.
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