Internet freedom

As any keen observer must have noticed, the world-wide social turmoil of the last year is closely linked with the availability of information, or in other words, the stark quest for transparency with which corrupt Governments and corporations around the globe have suddenly come face to face with. As philosopher Slavoj Žižek recently put it in a debate held in London with Julian Assange and Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman : “We may all know that the emperor is naked, but the moment somebody publicly says the emperor is naked: everything changes.

In this massive uncovering Wikileaks’ Cablegate has played a crucial role, not only providing an ongoing stream of secret information to the general public, but by showing that a better society, one working efficiently to reach its true idealistic goals, absolutely needs transparency. In an interview with Forbes Assange used a clear metaphor to illustrate the effects of transparency in a society by comparing them to those that would occur in a market situation: “To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information”, he also added that “WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical”. In other words if a Government is to work efficiently to achieve the goals it was elected for, citizens need clear and accurate reports on their leader’s actions; if they are failing to comply then they will be forced to do so by the general electorate. It is not to be implied, however, that Wikileaks and their sudden irruption in the scene have caused all the unrest directly: the emperor was already naked, they just called it out publicly and on a huge scale.

Following directions in a tweet from @LulzSec Twitter account, Wikileaks World connected to Anonymous IRC server and joined the public channel #AntiSec. The IRC, or Internet Chat Protocol, is the oldest chat protocol on the internet. It is also free. Once there, they recieved the automatic message for the channel's subject: “Got information/leaks?”. The text pointed us to several 'network operators' for the chat-room, marked with an “&” right before their screen-names. We talked with one of them.

After negotiating a moment when both he/she and we were not busy, we started the conversation below between an #AntiSec and WLCentral.

WLCentral will be providing news coverage from Spain on the ongoing #spanishrevolution through this liveblog. Contact us at @wikileaks_world or wikileaksworld@wikileaksworld.org to help us with footage, information and opinion.15MayRevolution.com provides information in English about the 15M movement. An updated agenda of related protests around the world can be found here.

May, 27th 2011

After surrounding the camp in early morning, the local police forces in Barcelona evicted the people staying in Plaza Catalunya at around 11:00 AM with the excuse of cleaning up. The reason, they say, is that because Football Club Barcelona plays the Champions League Final (an important football match) the area might be flooded by a massive celebration if they win. They stated that if this happens, then the tents and objects placed there could be used during the celebration for violent purposes, which they say is a “security risk”, making it necessary to evict so as to let cleaning brigades in the square. They also said they want to make clear it is not an eviction and that the protesters will be allowed to return after the operation is ended. While the police violence was taking place on the outskirts of the square, 300 people were surrounded in the center and sitting down peacefully they called for non-violence and asked the police to explain themselves. Official government channels have stated that 15 people suffered minor injuries during the operation, although this number could be much larger, as much as 45 or 65 according to El Pais and other independent media. Ironically, the spokesperson for the Catalan police said, on national television that the operation had been non-violent. On Twitter the #acampadabcn and #bcnsinmiedo hashtags have been very active and many videos as the ones below have been posted to show the un-called-for brutality with which the police evicted the peaceful protesters. In response to these actions, social media sites have been buzzing with anger, with many people around the world sending their support and others swearing they will return.

Election day has ended in Spain after last night the protest that started at 8:00 pm, planned as the most important yet, managed to occupy most of the squares and streets in around Sol. Many of them went with there families and many others came in from neighbouring towns and cities. The result of the elections, however, is a very pronounced swing to the right. Partido Popular (PP) has claimed victory in most of Spain’s autonomous communities and provinces, with 37.54% of votes, over the 27.80% obtained by PSOE (leading center-left party and currently in Government). Esperanza Aguirre, winning PP candidate in Madrid for the third time in a row, made her majority even bigger, and shortly after claimed that the Government should call for anticipated elections so that they would not “prolongue the agony of the country”. These results were expected by most analyists, who concurred that on top of the effects of the economic recession, the 15M movement had divided the mass of left wing voters.