Last week, the Guardia Civil arrested, handcuffed as if they were dangerous criminals, two young women from the Mallorcan town of Santa Maria del Camí for having made graffiti against tourist saturation and speculation on the facade of the office of a German real estate agency. For the arrest, several media outlets were notified, who disseminated the image of the two young women being led away with handcuffs on. Images illegally recorded with security cameras from the same real estate agency were also disseminated, in which they are seen making the graffiti. The next day, the Guardia Civil accused them of belonging to a "criminal organization". Both the Guardia Civil and the National Police also made a threat public: "Whoever commits crimes against tourist interests in Mallorca will be arrested".The disproportion is so exaggerated that it has caused indignation. As has been noted on social media, no one has ever been arrested in Mallorca for making fascist graffiti, such as that which regularly —for example— defaces the bust of Aurora Picornell. In any case, graffiti is an anecdotal event on an island where attacks, destruction, and assaults against the environment, urban spaces, and people's homes occur every day, and in abundance. And not at the hands of activists who question the system, certainly, but of mass tourism taken to the extreme, which has as a direct consequence the strongest demographic pressure and housing crisis in all of Spain. The island of Mallorca is being crushed and, at the same time, marketed without control or measure. On the contrary, the current government of PP and Vox has pushed through an omnibus law and an amendment to the agrarian law to unprotected rural land and natural spaces on the island. They have created a tailor-made legal framework so that any speculative abuse on an already saturated and fragile island is not only possible, but perfectly legal.That the authors of a protest graffiti are treated as dangerous criminals is another abuse, in this case a police one, for which the government delegate in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, and Minister Marlaska must answer. The context is easy to understand: for the next Sunday the 26th, a large demonstration is called in Palma against tourist saturation, and the political and economic powers that consider themselves owners of the island are trying to criminalize the protest and generate fear, in order to suffocate and dilute the call. There is an immediate precedent: the large human chain on July 5th, in protest against the lack of protection of the Es Trenc Natural Park: they thought it would be a small thing and found themselves with a significant citizen mobilization, which bothered them and which they have tried—also—to criminalize by saying... that graffiti had been made there. Predictably, they will use the old dirty tricks, starting with the infiltration of provocateurs within the demonstration. It is absolutely necessary that next Sunday's be the largest protest ever seen in the Balearic Islands.
