The Second Vice President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, announced just a few minutes ago that the political parties of PSOE and Sumar had reached an agreement to repeal the so-called gag law. A decision that will allow us to recover part of the freedom we had on the Internet before it was approved.
Yolanda Diaz, Second Vice President and Minister of Labor of the Government of Spain, announced just a few minutes ago an important agreement between the PSOE and Sumar. Both political parties have decided to repeal the so-called Gag Law, in force since July 2015.
“I am announcing to you that we have just finished closing an agreement with the Socialist Party, between Sumar and the Socialist Party, in which Sumar’s request for the repeal of the gag law is fulfilled.“, were the words of Díaz when she reported on this historic agreement on her arrival at the meeting of European Union Employment Ministers taking place today in Brussels.
The package of measures
Despite Díaz’s advance, the exact details are still unknown. What will be the measures? that will be included in the repeal. As well as the specific scope that it will have on society. The minister herself has indicated that it will not be until tomorrow when Pedro Sánchez will appear before the media to announce what the planned measures will be that will be taken with the aim of continuing to advance in the democratic regeneration. A movement completely antagonistic to the validity of Organic Law 4/2015, of March 30, on the protection of citizen security, popularly known as Gag Law.
The repeal of this law This is not a surprise, since it was one of the commitments that the Executive had made with its Government partners to receive the necessary support for the corresponding investiture. In addition, and in parallel, Díaz has also announced that a reform of the penal code is being considered that would affect “All crimes related to insults, public liberties, insults to the king and others”, without giving further details on the matter.
The press
The vice president took the opportunity to say that a series of reforms will also be incorporated into the law on institutional advertising. These reforms seek to “prevent“that those who practice”pseudojournalism“may violate”Codes of ethics”. In these cases, they will be “privately funded”.
Emphasizing, furthermore, “But right now we are closing the repeal of the gag law and also the end of public funding for pseudo-journalists in our country.“This will be the second time that the Government will try to repeal the rule, inherited by the Mariajo Rajoy’s government at the time, after its failure in the previous legislature, as a result of the refusal of ERC and Bildu in Congress.
It is worth remembering that some of the measures that were enabled from the moment this legal framework came into force had to do with the ban on posting images of the State Security Forces and Corps, the regular consultation of websites on terrorism, the manufacture or marketing of means to bypass the protections of video game consoles or the publication of sexual content without the consent of its protagonists, among others.
It is not yet known whether the repeal of the law affects all of these measures or whether, on the contrary, it will only focus on some of them. We will have to wait until Pedro Sánchez’s appearance tomorrow to find out exactly what its scope will be.
