Last year, the Barcelona Urban Guard launched the SAV, an attention service for victims of sexist violence, with two first locations, in Ciutat Vella and Nou Barris. One of the first victims who went to the police stations on La Rambla detailed how two years ago she was repeatedly raped, abused and humiliated by what was then her partner. A man who, in addition to sexually assaulting her, forced her to have relationships with other men and other situations that are difficult to reproduce on these pages.
The scene of those sexual assaults was La Tancada dels Immigrants, the space in Plaça de la Gardunya that the Barcelona Urban Guard recovered this week in a joint device with the Mossos d’Esquadra and the National Police, after to obtain judicial authorization.
The eviction took place without notable incidents, despite the afternoon attempts of some associations to lead a response that barely had two hundred demonstrators, who mixed the eviction with the result of the last regional elections.
Barcelona City Council and the Ciutat Vella district defended the eviction based on safety and health criteria. The stage, at the back of the Boqueria market, was the subject of 400 police interventions last year alone, in addition to more than a hundred written complaints from residents and traders, tired of the problems it was causing. This place initially welcomed migrants in an irregular situation. Over time it degenerated into a den of criminals who were joined by other individuals who surely had nowhere else better to go.
The safety of the space and the risk it posed to the occupants and the surrounding residents weighed heavily. The electricity supplies were maintained with crude arrangements to get free fluid and at any moment could have caused a serious incident. In addition, the Barcelona Fire Department determined that the accumulation of garbage and junk was ammunition for a fire in a densely populated neighborhood.
From the balconies, there were not a few residents who applauded the eviction of a space that had recently only brought problems to the neighborhood.