There was a case about a week ago in the north of Spain, where firemen refused to carry out a request made by the police over an eviction case. It has had resounding consequences.

A group of Stop-Evictions activists, backed by a crowd of like-minded neighbours thwarted a conviction order on an elderly lady in her 80’s; or so they thought. The police had given up, as had the court official, which was when the crowd dispersed. But it was only a lull and the police came back, catching only a few protesters present to confront them.

It took just a few minutes to drag the protesters away from the front of the door, but they were then confronted by a different kind of obstacle; two or three activists had chained themselves to the door on the inside, preventing it from being opened, so they called the fire service.

By the time that a fire-service vehicle had arrived a large crowd had gathered again, but the police were to be disappointed because the firemen took one look at the situation, refused outright to participate and climbed back into their vehicle, not before fixing a small “stop evictions” poster to the windscreen. The crowd went wild.

As a consequence, firemen from all over Spain are following their lead and are refusing to attend call outs that are part of an eviction process. By the end of February, the fire-service workers union for Granada had come out in support of their colleagues.

The firemen are exercising their right to act or not, according to their conscience and will not participate in any call out unless there is a real emergency situation.

Ole sus huevos.

(News: Metropolitan Granada, Andalucia)