As someone who has been, as an active member of CND, a member of the CPGB and at one point spearheading a campaign against the siting of U.S. Cruise missiles at a local USAAF base I can assure you I am far from blase!! Having one's phone intercepted is no frivolous matter.....

I was once followed when going to meet a Pravda correspondent to do an interview. It was apparently common practice for Soviet journalists and other officials to be tailed by MI5 agents when leaving London.

So I am well aware of the intrusion of the state into legitimate areas and means of protest which as you will know is in no way confined to Spain.

There are concerns in the UK about state intrusion into legitimate dissent and personal privacy. Our Union has had to go to extraordinary lengths to prove should it be necessary to do so that meetings which voted for strike action were properly conducted and quorate. We do not wish to run the risk of legal action.....as with the FBU and BA.

As you rightly say, this is an issue related to the nmost basic principles and practices of civil society and democracy. The state is taking liberties....ours, as the late E.P. Thompson memorably said.

Are there Spanish equivalents to the UK-based civil rights associations, do you know?

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

I think the uniforms look too modern - more the sort of stuff that would have been reserved for the officer-class in Franco's time.

Well, there is the organisation who mounted the petition in Nigel's link, for a start. As they point out, Article 21 of the Spanish Constitution guarantees the right to protest peacefully in public, distribute information and criticise the government.

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Read about life in the pueblo: La Vida Alcalaina

Do they have as public a profile as Liberty or ECHR in the UK?

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

No idea. Of course, the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) applies here too.

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Read about life in the pueblo: La Vida Alcalaina

Sorry, got my initials mixed up...I meant the Equality and Human Rights Commission.... known as 'Eric'. It was set up by the last Labour Government to implement and oversee the operations of the various strands which eventually became the Single Equality Act.

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.