The Police arrested two journalists during the protest in Ferraz for public disorder

Two of the 15 people arrested yesterday by the National Police during the riots in Ferraz are journalists who were covering the protests for their respective media outlets: El Mundo and El Español. According to police sources, both journalists were arrested for an alleged crime of public disorder after throwing bottles at the agents who were part of the police cordon, which protected the area around the PSOE headquarters. Journalists completely deny the police version.

Minutes before 11:00 p.m. yesterday, the concentration at the intersection of Ferraz and Marqués de Urquijo streets, the epicenter of the protests against Pedro Sánchez’s pacts with the independence parties to achieve the investiture, led to police charges after some protesters threw bottles, firecrackers and flares at the members of the Police Intervention Unit, known as riot police.

According to police sources, plainclothes agents from the General Information Commissariat detected that the two journalists, who were together covering the rally, allegedly threw bottles at the police officers. A version that those affected categorically deny. Both professionals, according to sources close to them, had been sending information to their newspapers about how the night of protests was developing. One of them to a channel that was offering “live” information about the riots.

The two journalists were detained in a doorway in the surrounding streets where they had sought refuge. According to the police version, they were trying to hide behind the throwing of cans. Proof of this, the same sources insist, is that they went up to the first floor of the building, where they were arrested. The detainees also deny that they climbed the stairs of the building, but that it was one of the protesters. There they were shown the press cards that accredit his profession, but he was not taken into account by the agents who carried out the arrests.

They spent the night in police headquarters, at the Moratalaz Police Station, until around 7:00 a.m. they were released. Both are being investigated for an alleged crime of public disorder, like the other 13 arrested yesterday.