Spain: Police intimidation and censorship

The European and International Federations of Journalists (IFJ and EFJ) have condemned police attempts to seize journalistic material from Publico newspaper in Madrid. Officers of the Judicial Police arrived at the editorial offices of Publico on 24 June to gain access to recordings of conversations between Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, and the director of the Office of Anti-Corruption of Catalonia, Daniel de Alfonso, which had been exclusively revealed by the paper on Tuesday 21 June. The conversations, which took place between 2 and 16 October 2014, implicated the minister in plans to discredit leaders of Catalan separatist groups, according to Publico. The agents were refused access to the material as they had no warrant. "It is scandalous that the police could break into a newspaper without a warrant for information about a minister, just two days before national elections this Sunday in Spain”, said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger. “We call on the authorities to respect the separation of powers and not to hinder free journalism and media investigations." Read the full article in French here

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