MALAGA, Spain, Sep 23, 2011 (IPS) – “I want to thank the 15-M. I will not forget them,” Algerian immigrant Sid Hamed Bouziane, whose deportation order was revoked after a group of activists from this burgeoning Spanish protest movement held an 11-day demonstration on his behalf, told IPS

The 15-M held protests to demand that the deportation be halted, and that the CIEs be closed “because they violate the most fundamental rights of human beings,” according to the members of the movement, who call themselves the “indignados” or “indignant” or “angry” ones.

“Managing to stop Bouziane’s sentencing to death was a success for our movement. No human being is illegal,” said Cosín. He also noted that the government cancelled the deportation order in August after the Algerian activist married his Spanish girlfriend, Candela Mayorgas, thus gaining the right to stay in Spain.

Four months after the original May 15 sit-in protest stretched into a full-fledged tent camp at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square, giving rise to a growing wave of massive rallies and protests around Spain, the “Spanish revolution” – as it has been dubbed by the press – has been making bigger and bigger waves.

The movement has so far blocked more than 65 evictions, although an average of 175 evictions a day were carried out in Spain in the first quarter of 2011 as a result of the real estate bust. Due to the economic crisis, thousands of people have failed to keep up on their mortgage payments and have been forced out of their homes under a law “that shamefully protects banks and leaves citizens completely defenceless.

The 15-M set up camps outside the health centres, where they demonstrated alongside health professionals, neighbourhood associations and health consumers.

On Sunday Sep. 18, the “indignados” poured onto the streets of Spain’s largest cities to protest the reduction of budgets for public services, demanding the right to health care and quality education.

Chanting slogans like “divert military spending to schools and hospitals” and “less corruption, more education”, hundreds of people responded to the 15-M’s calls to march through the streets of Málaga behind a huge banner reading “free quality public health care and education for all”.

In Catalonia, hundreds of health clinics and wings of hospitals have been closed; in Castilla-La Mancha in central Spain hundreds of pharmacies went on strike to protest the non-payment of bills by the government health authority; and in Madrid, teachers protested cuts in education, a 15-M statement says.

Read More HERE     http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105217