The PAH Movement: A Case Study of Social Justice in Spain, Apuntes de Periodismo

¡Descarga The PAH Movement: A Case Study of Social Justice in Spain y más Apuntes en PDF de Periodismo solo en Docsity! Desahuciados: a case study Barcelona was the place for the Platform of the Affected People by the Mortgage (PAH) to be born, chiefly because Cataluña was, along with Madrid, the Community with a higher rate of evictions in the country. CITA In February of 2009 it emerged as a movement itself after a few groups and collective of people that had suffered from actions of ejectment came together to start protesting in the banks and asking for the “dation in payment.” Even though most people did not know it in the moment of the contract mortgage signing, in Spain it is not sufficient to give back the house property in order to SALDAR the mortgage debt. According to data, since 2007 more than 350.000 evictions have left thousands of families in the street with a life-lasting debt. CITA (&). Everyday, around 159 evictions orders take place in Spain. (MISMA CITA &) Backed up by this data, and despite the media silence, the PAH was created. Many people were surprised by the fast pace in which the PAH became a solid platform that would later be part of the 15M movement. This happened for several reasons. Firstly it is important the role that the platform took in making what seemed as an individual, private problem, into a social one that could be addressed. Most people affected by this problem felt the necessity to actively join and collaborate with a platform created to support each affected person. It rapidly became a point (sinónimo) of resistance against banks violence and the system crisis, a true strong claim for social justice. Secondly it was the means used by the platform to perform such claims. For its means, the platform would only use peaceful or pacific resistance and civil disobedience. Finally, the platform dealt finely with the big variety of effected individuals that composed it. Not only immigrant people that had lost their jobs lost also their home. The standard/average of Spanish worker evicted by a mortgage eviction order. This brought together a amalgama. However, the PAH was born with a halo of disillusion. At that moment there was a general concern for the turns the Government was taking. Because the social tension was increasing, and the social order was starting to be questioned and even broken by some protesters, the Executive Power announced its intention of reforming the Spanish Penal Code in order to be able to sanction the pacific resistance, a way of proceeding that had been mostly used to resist the evictions or to occupy the bank bancarias, with the aim of obtaining daciones en pago o social renting for the families. This was finally carried out, in words of the MIMMIMI Puig “to increase people’s fear of the system” (CITA $) Seen as a provocation and a “fear strategy” In June 2010, the PAH took to the Congress a proposal to modify the Mortgage Law in order to achieve in Spain what in so many others countries in Europe and America is regarded as fair: the dation in payment. The proposal was turned down/rejected by both PP and PSOE. There was a second try of the platform in March 2011 to start a Popular Initiative Legislative (ILP), by collecting half a million signatures that turned up to be almost a million and a half that would take the proposal back to the Congress.