About 650 people, according to the Guardia Urbana, demonstrated this Sunday in Barcelona against the war, rearmament, and the international military escalation of recent months. The mobilization, called by the Plataforma Aturem la Guerra and supported by about fifty entities, started in Plaça de la Universitat and advanced along Pelai street to Plaça de Sant Jaume, where the final manifesto was read.
During the march, flags of Palestine and banners rejecting Israel were seen. Attendees chanted slogans against military spending and focused a good part of their denunciations on the situation in Gaza, as well as on the conflict in Palestine and Lebanon.
Tour of Barcelona city center
The protest marched along one of the most central thoroughfares of the city until reaching Sant Jaume square, a usual setting for political and social gatherings. There, the organizers expressed their rejection of the increase in defense budgets and the current international drift, in an event with a strong pacifist message.
The call came from the Plataforma Aturem la Guerra and gathered the support of about 50 entities. In the manifesto read at the end of the route, Donald Trump was charged against, whom was defined as "the promoter of an aggressive imperialist policy, based on threat, force, and violence", and it was warned that this policy comes to "destroy peoples and civilizations".
Criticism of military spending and the arms industry
Tica Font, founder of the Centre Delàs and expert in defense economics, launched a message addressed to the president of the Government.
"Do not bow to Trump's demands and the European Union's agreements to increase defense spending. We have already reached 2.4%, that's enough" - Tica Font, founder of the Centre Delàs
Font also demanded from the Govern not to subsidize the military industry and to bet on the civil industry. In the same line, he asked the city councils not to withdraw taxes like the IBI from the arms industry. Furthermore, he defended that the reduction of dependence on fossil fuels be addressed with seriousness to guarantee energy independence.
In her intervention, the expert maintained that it is necessary to guarantee "Palestinian rights, human rights and the international order" and continue pushing for the end of "Israel's apartheid."
Rejection of NATO and appeal to the diplomatic path
Pere Ortega, member of Aturem la Guerra, vindicated the historical motto of the pacifist movement and rejected that it be absorbed by the institutional discourse.
"We reclaim the "no to war" that Pedro Sánchez has appropriated. This is a cry of social movements" - Pere Ortega, Plataforma Aturem la Guerra
Ortega rejected NATO and the increase in defense budgets, and defended a diplomatic offensive to get closer to Russia and recover a relationship of understanding. The manifesto and the interventions of the spokespersons insisted on the need to stop rearmament and lower international tension.
The mobilization denounced the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the impunity with which, in the opinion of the attendees, Israel acts. The protest concluded in Sant Jaume square with the reading of the final text and with new slogans in favor of the rights of the Palestinian people and against the military escalation.