Mossoró prison, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil, is one of the five maximum security prisons in that country. Credit: Mjsp

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 4 2024 (IPS)

Invoking the fight against terrorists and sending those who can be charged with this crime to new maximum security prisons are increasingly emerging in the toolbox of Latin American leaders who want to show an iron fist against criminals and opponents.

Renata Segura, head of the regional programme of the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group, wrote on her X-media account that “the fascination of Latin American presidents with maximum security prisons is spreading like wildfire.”

This attraction is present among presidents of opposing political persuasions, although most of them are united by the neo-populism of their policies and actions.

Venezuela is the most recent case, where president Nicolás Maduro, whose re-election in the 28 July elections sparked an outbreak of street protests, ordered two prisons to be set up as maximum security jails to hold some 2,000 protesters arrested and accused of terrorism.“The fascination of Latin American presidents with maximum security prisons is spreading like wildfire”: Renata Segura.

Argentine president Javier Milei accused opponents who recently demonstrated against him in Buenos Aires of the same offence, while Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa ordered the construction of a maximum security prison and a prison ship for criminals accused of terrorism.

The top regional reference is president Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, who under a state of emergency that has lasted more than two years has detained 80,000 people, mostly accused of terrorism as members of large criminal gangs or maras.

The Bukele government built a mega-prison, the Terrorism Containment Center (Cecot), with capacity for 40,000 inmates who are subjected to trial and detention conditions that violate human rights, according to international humanitarian organisations that observe the process.

Segura told IPS from New York that “the recent announcements of the construction of maximum security prisons are most likely inspired by the measures taken by president Bukele, who has been quite successful in reducing insecurity.”

She acknowledged that the Salvadoran ruler “has high levels of popularity, despite massive human rights violations in that country.”

Indeed, “he ended up putting two percent of El Salvador’s adult population behind bars, mostly without due process, and with serious human rights violations,” said Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, president of the non-governmental Washington Office on Latin America (Wola).

Under this state of emergency, “at least 261 people have already been killed, and we must remember that every person in state custody is the responsibility of the state,” Sandoval told IPS from Washington.

Construction work is underway at the dilapidated Tocuyito prison in north-central Venezuela, which is being quickly converted into a high-security prison for hundreds of detainees in protests against the proclaimed re-election of president Nicolás Maduro. Credit: RrSs

New fad, old recipe

On 21 June, Noboa started building a maximum-security prison on a 16-hectare site in the province of Santa Elena, on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, a country of 18 million people with 36 prisons. It is expected to cost US$52 million and will hold up to 800 inmates.

“Today we are marking one of the most important milestones in our fight against terrorism and the mafias that have hijacked our country’s momentum for decades,” said the president, who will seek re-election next year.

In Venezuela, while hundreds of young protesters against Maduro’s proclamation as winner were imprisoned in late July, the president ordered two prisons in the centre of the country, Tocorón and Tocuyito, to be remodelled as “maximum security prisons” to hold the new captives.

Not to be outdone, Milei announced he will sell prisons on valuable land in urban centres in Argentina, and use the money to build maximum security prisons far from the cities. In June he sent his Security minister, Patricia Bullrich, to learn about the Salvadoran experience.

“This is the way. Tough on criminals,” the minister said after the visit.

Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa (in black) looks at a model of the new maximum security prison being built on his country’s Pacific coast. He presents it as part of the fight against criminal gangs he describes as terrorists. Credit: Presidencia de Ecuador

Maximum security prisons have always existed in the region, such as the Mexican Federal Rehabilitation Centre El Altiplano, in the central state of Mexico, where a group of former drug cartel leaders and serial killers are held.

Colombia has its most secure prisons in Combita (centre) and Valledupar (north), as well as maximum security wings in Bogota’s La Picota prison, where it has held guerrillas, convicted or accused terrorists, and drug cartel leaders for years.

Brazil, with 8.5 million square kilometres and 205 million people, has five maximum security prisons, in four of its 26 states and in the Federal District. Two prisoners escaped from Mossoro prison in the northeast last February, its first jailbreak since 2006.

Tragically famous are the prisons of Lurigancho, in Lima, and El Fronton Island, in the Pacific off the capital, for the massacre of hundreds of prisoners belonging to leftist guerrilla group Shining Path, following a riot in June 1986, in the context of the anti-terrorist struggle in Peru.

Argentina’s Security Minister Patricia Bullrich visited the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, which she considers a model to follow. Credit: Presidencia de El Salvador

These maximum security prisons were shut down after the massacre, but Peru maintains the Challapalca prison, in a desolate spot in the south of the country at 4,600 metres above sea level, the highest in the world, where it holds dozens of prisoners considered highly dangerous.

Commenting on the case of El Salvador, Jiménez Sandoval observed, “does it have lower homicide levels? True. Do people feel safer? True.”

“It is also true that these punitive models based on mass arrests and human rights violations tend to have immediate effects, but it is very difficult in the medium and long term for them to continue to be useful”, she said.

“You can’t put everyone behind bars”, but also “because many of the factors that influence and cause the inclusion of young people in violence remain, such as poverty, exclusion, lack of educational and employment opportunities and life plans”, Jiménez said.

“We are not terrorists,” reads a sign held by a protester in Caracas against the proclaimed re-election of president Nicolás Maduro. Nearly 2,000 people have been arrested in the protests and the Attorney General’s Office has announced terrorism charges against hundreds of them. Credit: Provea

Cultivating fear

Now, the option of maximum security prisons goes beyond the fight against terrorism and reaches political activism, threatening opponents or demonstrators who could be accused of this crime, and also as a show of strength and determination to hold on to power.

“When rulers in countries that also face high rates of insecurity due to organised crime, gangs or other phenomena announce these measures, they are undoubtedly making gestures that indicate that they too are adopting a tough-on-crime strategy,” Segura said.

In Venezuela, “where repression of the opposition has grown after the elections, I think there is another goal: sending a message to those who are considering joining the protests that they will be arrested and imprisoned as if they were high risk criminals,” she added.

The Venezuelan government “is making a very intense effort to mainstream that anyone who protests or dissents from the officially announced election results is a terrorist,” lawyer Gonzalo Himiob, vice-president of Foro Penal, an organisation advocating human rights, and in particular of prisoners, for 15 years, told IPS.

“There is a deliberate trivialisation of terrorism by those in power, and a technical incorrectness, because arrested demonstrators do not fit the internationally accepted definitions of terrorist agents, links or acts,” Himiob said.

Many of those arrested were just bystanders not even demonstrating, and among the 1,500 arrested in the weeks following the 28 July election there are at least 114 teenagers, which delegitimises the terrorism charges, he adds.

There were “doubly serious events”, such as the announcement by the Prosecutor’s Office that those arrested would be categorised as terrorists, “a prefabricated catalogue that inverts the law, which states that first the facts are individualised and then the people, and not the other way around,” continued Himiob.

In short, “they are acting with what is known as criminal law of the enemy, using it not to do justice but to capitalise on power,” he said.

And, thus, to rule with the impulse of the springs of fear.

Islamist President Mohamed Morsi’s first turbulent year in office will end with two massive rallies in Cairo, both expected to draw hundreds of thousands: one by his mostly Islamist supporters and another by secular opposition forces who demand he step down.

For the last three months, Cairo has been bracing for massive opposition demonstrations to demand the President’s resignation and early elections. Protest calls have been spearheaded by Egypt’s anti-Morsi Tamarrud (‘Rebel’) signature drive, which claims to have gathered 15 million citizens’ endorsements in support of its demands.

Opposition forces demanding Morsi’s ouster under Egypt’s National Salvation Front (NSF) the opposition umbrella group, argue that Morsi has failed during his one year in office to improve the lives of Egyptians or realise popular demands emanating from Egypt’s 2011 revolution.

Endorsed by almost all of Egypt’s non-Islamist political groups – and heavily promoted on much of Egypt’s anti-Islamist privately-owned media – Sunday’s demonstrations are expected to witness a massive turnout."Morsi shouldn't have waited...until people were hitting the streets to demand his departure."

“On Jun. 30 we will converge in the millions on Tahrir Square and the presidential palace in Cairo, where we will remain until Morsi steps down,” Mahmoud Badr, founder and leading member of the ‘Rebel’ campaign told IPS.

Egypt’s first-ever freely elected head of state, however, will not be facing his many opponents alone on Sunday. On Friday (Jun. 28), Morsi’s supporters began to arrive in the thousands in Cairo’s Nasr City district in a show of support for the embattled president and his “democratic legitimacy.”

Morsi narrowly defeated Ahmed Shafiq, ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, in 2012 presidential polls that were widely regarded as free and fair. Morsi’s supporters, led by the Muslim Brotherhood group from whose ranks he hails, say that calls for Morsi’s departure are undemocratic, and accuse Egypt’s secular opposition of failing to respect the results of the ballot box.

Friday’s planned pro-Morsi demonstrations, which have been endorsed by most Islamist parties and groups, will be the second such show of strength within one week. Last Friday (Jun. 21) saw hundreds of thousands converge on the same location both to express support for the president and to “say no to violence.”

With both sides now vowing to stage open-ended sit-ins, the tense standoff has prompted widespread fears of violence between the two rival camps. This week has already seen clashes in several Egyptian provinces – including Daqahliya, Sharqiya and Zagazig – between the president’s supporters and opponents, which have left at least three people dead and scores injured.

On Thursday (Jun. 27) Hasan Shefai, senior advisor to the Grand Sheikh of Egypt’s Al-Azhar (the highest seat of learning in the Sunni-Muslim world), warned of the danger of violent confrontations nationwide.

He went on to urge both of Egypt’s political camps to “show restraint or else risk civil war.”

In a statement issued the same day, Al-Azhar called for the formation of a “national reconciliation council” – consisting of representatives of all political currents – tasked with resolving the political crisis through dialogue.

Earlier in the week, defence minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi issued similar calls for reconciliation, warning that Egypt’s armed forces would not allow the country to “fall into a dark tunnel of civil unrest and killing, sectarianism and the collapse of state institutions.”

His comments prompted a flurry of media speculation about the possible return of the military to Egypt’s domestic political arena in the event that Sunday’s planned protests forced Morsi to relinquish authority.

A presidential spokesman, however, quickly dismissed the idea, stressing that the military’s role was merely to protect Egypt’s borders and secure vital state institutions.

“There is a president ruling the country democratically, through democratic elections,” he said. “There is no political role for the army.”

He added: “President Morsi represents the commander-in-chief of the military; anything that happens within the army is coordinated through him.”

Since Tuesday (Jun. 25), military forces have been deploying nationwide in anticipation of the upcoming wave of demonstrations.

Anti-Morsi protesters themselves appear divided on what role the military should play. On Wednesday, one group of anti-Morsi demonstrators in Tahrir Square waved banners bearing pro-army slogans while another chanted in unison, “No to military rule.”

From Mubarak’s ouster in February 2011 until Morsi’s assumption of the presidency a year ago, Egypt’s Supreme Military Council held executive authority. During its one-and-a-half-year stint in power, the military was frequently accused by activists and revolutionary groups of committing gross rights violations.

In a highly anticipated address to the nation on Wednesday night (Jun. 26), Morsi reiterated calls for “national reconciliation,” but otherwise barely mentioned the imminent rallies. In a bid to assuage his critics, he also announced the formation of a committee tasked with hearing opposition proposals for constitutional changes.

Opposition leaders, however, rejected Morsi’s overtures, describing them as “too late.”

“The opposition has been demanding constitutional change since last year,” said the ‘Rebel’ campaign’s Badr. “Morsi shouldn’t have waited to make this concession until people were hitting the streets to demand his departure.”

Badr went on to predict that, like Mubarak in his final days in power, Morsi would deliver “three more speeches” before announcing his decision to step down.

The opposition NSF likewise rejected the president’s proposition. “Morsi’s speech only deepens our resolve to press for early presidential elections in order to achieve the aims of the revolution,” it declared in a statement.

Morsi supporters, calling his democratic legitimacy a “red line”, have vowed to remain in the area indefinitely to protect the nearby presidential palace from anti-Morsi demonstrators on Sunday.

Thousands of opposition protesters, meanwhile, remain arrayed in Tahrir Square and outside the Egyptian Defence Ministry to demand Morsi’s ouster.

“This is a recipe for disaster; neither side is prepared to give way,” 52-year-old government employee Magdi Yusuf – who plans to keep his distance from both demonstrations – told IPS.

Echoing a fear common to most Cairo residents, he added, “Violence appears unavoidable at this point.”

In the coastal city Alexandria, clashes erupted on Friday afternoon between rival demonstrators, some reportedly armed with shotguns.

Many in the crowd of San Francisco May Day marchers wore butterfly wings; the Monarch butterfly migrates to Mexico and then back to the U.S. every year. Credit: Judith Scherr/IPS

By Judith Scherr
SAN FRANCISCO, California, May 2 2013 (IPS)

More than 1,000 people marched under the brilliant San Francisco sun on May Day. Their signs, such as “Work in America/Live in America/Dream in America. Immigration reform now,” their songs, chants and speeches wove together the twin themes of the day: worker justice and immigrant justice.

Alphonso Pines of the hotel and restaurant workers union Unite HERE put it this way, speaking to the crowd before the march: “We’re marching for our families; we’re marching to honour the sweat and the contributions of each and every working person. We’re marching to honour the beauty of each and every family – queer or straight, immigrant or born here. We’re marching because together we can make history.“People are getting separated from their families every day. We want a stop to that immediately." -- Kitzia Esteva of Causa Justa

“Together we can win immigration reform that includes all workers and all families. Together we can stop the pain of deportation.”

In all, there were some 85 marches calling for worker and immigrant rights around the U.S., including a march of 700 in Oakland, California, 2,000 in Los Angeles and several thousand in New York.

Seattle-based journalist Mark Taylor Canfield told IPS that unions brought large numbers of people out to a peaceful march of several thousand in Seattle. A break-off group broke windows and damaged property. Police reacted with “large amounts of pepper spray and flash-bang grenades,” he said. There were 13 arrests.

In San Francisco, Tessa Levine was getting ready to march with Mujeres Unidas. Like many in the crowd, she wore butterfly wings. The Monarch butterfly flies to Mexico then back to the U.S. every year, she said, explaining, “It’s really a symbol that migration is beautiful, that migration is natural.”

Still, migration is regulated by law. And at this point, no one knows exactly what the new immigration law will look like – or if one will actually make it through both houses of Congress and on to the president’s desk.

A number of demonstrators told IPS they had serious questions about the bill known as the Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform scheduled for consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 9.

A primary concern with the bill is the 13 years it would take most immigrants in the U.S. without documents to become citizens. The positive aspect is that, during the waiting period, they would be able to work legally. However, during that time, they would be excluded from social services, including the right to purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

“We want a fast and just path to citizenship,” said Kitzia Esteva, of the advocacy organisation Causa Justa.Just Cause, noting that immigrants’ taxes pay for these services.

Emily Lee, with the Chinese Progressive Association, expressed similar concerns. Noting that one million out of the 11 million undocumented persons living in the U.S. are Asian-Pacific Islanders, she asked, “What does that mean when you’re paying back taxes, and you’re expected to contribute to the society, but you’re not receiving the benefits?”

But even getting onto the path for citizenship under the Senate bill under discussion could be impossible for people who have worked informally as day labourers or domestic workers, since the applicant is expected to show proof of having worked in the U.S.

“These are men who are working every day,” said Emiliano Bourgois-Chacon, with the San Francisco Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective. But because they are undocumented, they don’t have paperwork to prove they have been working, Bourgois-Chacon said.

Keeping the family together was another concern of May Day demonstrators.

The bill in the Senate would make it more difficult for families to sponsor siblings. “Family reunification has been a cornerstone of immigration in the U.S.,” Lee, of the Chinese Progressive Association, said. “And to start chipping away at that…is very problematic.”

Many people in the Chinese community wouldn’t otherwise have been able to come to the U.S., she added.

Deportations that rip families apart are of great concern to a number of demonstrators IPS interviewed. There have been some 800 deportations from San Francisco since 2009, with the introduction of Secure Communities or “S-Comm”, the programme where local police share arrest information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Estava of Causa Justa.

Across the Bay in Alameda County, the Oakland-Berkeley area, there have been 2,000 deportations since 2009.

“People are getting separated from their families every day,” Estava said. “We want a stop to that immediately. We are fighting to get local police to stop the collaboration between police and ICE, and we have that same demand on the national level with immigration reform.”

Deportation has also heavily impacted the Arab immigrant community, said Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center. “There’s obviously racial discrimination and systemic criminalisation of Arabs and Muslims here in the United States, which leads oftentimes to deportation,” she said.

Like Estava, Kiswani said the high number of deportations comes from collaboration between local and federal law enforcement. “There should be an end to S-Comm so that there’s more accountability to local law enforcement and so that people aren’t unjustly targeted and deported for various misdemeanors,” she said.

Another problem with the current and proposed law is the E-verify programme through which an employer can verify a person’s social security number. ICE can request an employer perform an E-verify audit.

Olga Miranda, president of Service Employees International Union Local 87, said a few years ago several hundred of her union janitors were targeted by an E-verify audit, fired, and “lost everything overnight”.

Esteva pointed to another problem with the proposed law: putting resources into enhanced law enforcement on the border.

ICE and the border patrol have the most law enforcement money in the country, Esteva said. “Instead of putting that money into border enforcement, we could see a lot more social services and resources for the community. We think that money would not be well invested in protecting the border.”

Nancy Mackowsky marched the two-mile route holding an American Federation of Teachers banner. She teaches English as a second language at San Francisco City College and said some of her students work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., then come to her class in the evening four days a week.

“They have goals, they have dreams and they deserve to be able to fulfill them,” she said.

A call for freedom in Tunis. Credit: Lassad Ben Achour/IPS.

By Giuliana Sgrena
TUNIS, Apr 14 2013 (IPS)

Ela, a young Tunisian woman whose face is barely visible behind her niqab, says she has spent five months protesting a university ban against the religious garment in the classroom “to no avail”. On the other side of the capital Tunis, a group of students decked out in djellabas and keffiyehs (traditional Tunisian costumes) with the Tunisian flag wrapped around their shoulders, perform the Harlem Shake: a dance form that originated in the United States in the early 1980s but has recently gone viral online as a popular meme.

The two scenes represent the latest battle in Tunisia, between ultra-religious Salafists and staunchly secular Tunisians who say the rise of Islamists after the fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 represents an erosion of the gains made during the revolution.

Ela, clad from head to toe in black, represents the conservatives’ desire for reverence and conformity, while the “protest dancers” symbolise the new generation that was born out of the uprising, a vivid, colourful and diverse mix of people who say culture has become the new frontline in the ongoing fight for democracy in post-revolutionary Tunisia.

“Dancing is not only a non-violent protest, the body is itself an expression of liberation and of well-being."
Recently, the rap singer who goes by the name ‘Weld el 15’ was condemned to two years in prison in retaliation for his song Boulicia Kleb (meaning “policeman are dogs”), which was viewed over 650,000 times on YouTube. The music video’s director and lead actress each received six-month sentences.

“The police often use the law against drugs to arrest singers, in particular rap singers, because of the use of marijuana,” Adnen Meddeb, a young film-maker who shot the revolution from inside Tunisia, tells IPS.

Oussama Bouajila and Chahine Berriche, two graffiti artists from the group Zwelwa (meaning “the poor”) were arrested on Nov. 3, 2012 for the mural they painted on the walls of the industrial city of Gabes, entitled, “The people want rights for the poor”. Their verdict was released on Apr. 10: each was charged a 50-dollar fine for “defacing government property” and ordered to clean the walls.

Zwela has denounced the artists’ trial as a “political trial, which reminds us of the methods used under Ben Ali.”

The Ministry of Interior has emerged as one of the most common sites of cultural resistance where, every Wednesday, a group of activists stage a sit-in to protest the Feb. 6 assassination of Chokri Belaïd, leader of the leftist Popular Front opposition coalition.

A demonstration in honour of slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid in Burghiba Avenue in Tunis. Credit: Giuliana Sgrena/IPS

“Every Wednesday we sit here to force the ministry to answer the question: ‘Who killed Belaïd?’,” Amor Ghadamsi, painter and general secretary of the Tunisian Artists Trade Union, tells IPS.

He says the assassination was the “gravest incident in a climate of mounting violence, and it shocked the country. Before this, people did not realise the extent of the danger they faced. Now we want the Tunisian authorities to investigate and find the perpetrators,” he stressed.

The artists took up this weekly demonstration after a statue they produced to honour Belaïd’s death, erected outside the slain leaders’ home, was destroyed by the Salafists. “Culture is our resistance now,” Ghadamsi said, referring to the widespread use of graffiti, and the proliferation of political rap with lyrics that honour the revolution.

The choice to hold the protest outside a government building symbolises a growing distrust with the ruling Ennahda Party, which contested – and won – the country’s first free elections in October 2011 on a moderate, secular platform.

But the group has come under fire for allowing religious extremists to operate with impunity.

One of these extremist groups is the League for the Protection of the Revolution (LPR), an association that is widely believed to have close ties to the  government and has been involved in many confrontations with opposition parties and activists with the Union General Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT), the country’s leading trade union.

LPR members claimed responsibility for the fatal beating of Lotfi Nakbou, a leader of the Nida Tounes party in the southern Tunisian city of Tataouine in October 2012, and for the destruction of the statue of Belaid.

“These people work in the name of Ennahda. They are people from Ennahda, close to Ennahdha, former convicts hired by Ennahda, and people whose consciences Ennahda has bought,” Jilani Hammami, spokesperson of the Workers’ Party, insisted in an interview with Tunisia Live back in January.

Though the government has dismissed the claim, locals here point out that the LPR are never persecuted for their criminal actions. The UGTT has called repeatedly for the dissolution of the LPR to no avail.

With the government turning a blind eye to violence, scores of Tunisians feel they have no choice but to turn to immaginative, creative and non-violent protests.

Their staunch ally during the revolution, the Internet has resurfaced as a crucial tool in the cultural war, which activists say began in earnest on Mar. 25, 2012 when Salafist gangs attacked artists celebrating World Theatre Day on Bourguiba Avenue in central Tunis. Witnesses to that scene told IPS the police either assisted the mobs, or simply stood by.

Dances like the Harlem Shake and other cultural protest videos quickly go viral, sometimes even attracting the attention of the mainstream media.

Meanwhile young Tunisians have repeatedly “occupied” Bourguiba Avenue to commemorate the clashes that sparked this wave of cultural resistance, halting traffic by sitting in the middle of the street to read books in an act of defiance against state security forces.

In the same vein, a group calling itself Art Solution initiated the “I will dance in spite of everything” movement. Directed by Bahri ben Yahmed, the dancers perform in every possible public space they can claim: in front of the national theatre, in the Belvedere gardens, in Kasbah Square, but also in the poor outskirts of Tunis.

Often, on-lookers and passersby join the dancers, creating the feeling of the kind of spontaneous protests that were familiar sights during the early days of the revolt.

“Dancing is not only a non-violent protest, the body is itself an expression of liberation and of well-being,” commented the writer Jamila Ben Mustapha.

(END)

Indignation in Portugal over rampant joblessness and cuts in wages, pensions and unemployment benefits, together with a growing tax burden, has given rise to innovative forms of protest capable of drawing large crowds.

The common denominator is non-violence. A mixture of ingenuity, humour and nostalgia for the good old days is the recipe that wide sectors of society are following to express their outrage in the face of the social and economic debacle.
In the conservative government’s year and a half in office, the unemployment rate has climbed from 11 to 16.9 percent, while GDP fell by 3.2 percent in 2012 and one-quarter of the population of 10.6 million are facing poverty and social exclusion.

Painting murals, which was popular three decades ago, is making a comeback.

Mural on Marquês da Fronteira Avenue in Lisbon. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

Hundreds of young people are using paint and the walls of urban buildings across the country as a form of protest against the neoliberal free market policies of the government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. Democracy does not just mean voting every four years, they argue.

One example is Marquês da Fronteira Avenue, one of Lisbon’s main arteries, where dozens of people responded to a call by the Associação de Combate à Precariedade (Association to Combat Job Insecurity) and Precários Inflexíveis (Inflexible Precarious Workers), gathering on Sunday Feb. 24 to paint huge murals about the crisis, in an atmosphere of festive solidarity.

On the murals, the two groups are also calling for people to come out for a demonstration on Saturday Mar. 2, without the involvement of political parties or trade unions.

Another novel form of protest arose in the public galleries of parliament on Feb. 15, when a group of people attending the debates, headed by well-known singer-songwriter Carlos Mendes, spontaneously began to sing “Grândola, Vila Morena,” a symbol of the peaceful Apr. 25, 1974 “carnation revolution” that overthrew the dictatorship that came to power in 1926.

“Grândola, Vila Morena” was used as a signal by a group of leftwing army captains to advance on Lisbon to oust Marcello Caetano, the successor to António de Oliveira Salazar and General Manuel Gomes da Costa. The three rulers were the heads of the longest European dictatorship of the 20th century (1926-1974).

The action in parliament was the result of “a group of activists on the day of the fortnightly plenary debate, who interrupted the prime minister’s speech by singing ‘Grândola’ at the very moment that the government party was making its point,” Mendes told IPS.

“It all took place in the context of actions planned to call people’s attention to the criminal austerity that is being imposed on us,” he said.

Mendes particularly stressed that “there were no insults or strong words; we simply sang, and the head of government had to stop speaking, drowned out by the chorus of voices singing ‘Grândola, Vila Morena’.”

In the two weeks that have passed since the protest in parliament, the prime minister and other government officials have been repeatedly interrupted in public by demonstrators singing the symbolic song, all around the country.

Another creative form of protest emerged three weeks ago, when the tax office began to receive electronic invoices in the name, and with the tax identification number, of Pedro Passos Coelho.

Previously cash register receipts served as automatic tax declarations for shopkeepers. Now the government is attempting to curb undeclared sales by shops and small businesses by providing a small tax rebate to customers who give their names and tax ID number.

But by the end of the third week of February, the tax office web site began to collapse under the flood of thousands of receipts with the prime minister’s name and tax identification number.

The protest operation was coordinated through the Facebook page “as faturas do coelho” (Coelho’s receipts), and now emails and text messages are also circulating the tax identification numbers of Finance Minister Vítor Gaspar, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Miguel Relvas and Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz.

The “as faturas do coelho” account is the result of “a much wider movement that goes far beyond a Facebook page,” one of the organisers told IPS.

Its members prefer not to identify themselves individually, because “there is no name behind this page, and therefore we do not make individual statements.”

The spokesperson explained that “the (Facebook) account does not personalise the operation, nor does it credit the inventor with particular merit, but rather credits all the citizens who make this creative protest every day, ultimately contributing also to combating the deficit.

“The Facebook page will continue to contribute humorously, so that the action will continue,” the spokesperson said, adding that cash registers in large shopping centres are becoming jammed by the excessive use of the ministers’ tax identification numbers, as in these malls “one out of every three customers is shopping in the name of the prime minister.”

It is “a movement that is much more representative of Portuguese citizens than the prime minister would have us believe,” the spokesperson said, even though “he is right to say that one tree does not make a forest.

“However we, the people who are up in arms in indignation, are increasingly the forest,” the spokesperson concluded.