Entities warn that the Interior Ministry has changed its criteria and fines evictions with the 'gag law'

BarcelonaIn 2022, the Ministry of the Interior, then led by Esquerra Republicana, approved an internal instruction to try to stop sanctioning with the so-called gag law people who protest peacefully, especially in cases of preventing an eviction. We are talking about situations like sitting on the floor in front of the home, gathering around the residence, protesting by offering peaceful resistance and encouraging other people who are not part of the mobilization to participate, and which until then often ended with a fine for disobedience. Now, however, several entities report that with the new Ministry of the Interior, led by the PSC since the end of 2024, this has changed.

Housing unions and Alerta Solidària have criticized this Thursday that the Interior Ministry has "abandoned" the criteria set in 2022 and has "massively" sanctioned again people trying to stop evictions. The result so far, according to the entities, is 88 administrative sanctions and a total of more than 50,000 euros in fines for the housing union movement. According to a count by the entities, a large part of the fine amount, 43,272 euros out of 50,081, is for disobedience or resistance to authority applying the gag law, totaling 72 sanctions of 601 euros.

In fact, ARA has had access to a parliamentary question that the CUP issued in April 2026, in which it requested the fines applied following the gag law. In its response, the ministry refers to the instruction approved in 2022 and states that "this document is a compilation of jurisprudence related to existing regulations and jurisprudence, not a regulatory provision." At the same time, the department adds that "current legislation and the jurisprudence established by judges and courts are applied".

However, in the same response, the ministry attaches the fines imposed following the gag law since 2023, and an increase in resolved cases and also in cases with advance payment in 2025 is observed. Fines for disobedience, for example, went from 841 in 2024 to 2,441 in 2025. This year, we have had 621. Cases with advance payment also doubled from one year to the next.

Change of criteria

With this data in hand, the unions denounce a change in criteria. They cite, for example, a case from the Les Corts neighborhood of Barcelona on April 7, 2025. Three families with minors were evicted. Neighbors and activists gathered in front of the building, and the eviction was finally carried out. A year later, according to the organizations, 53 fines have been notified for alleged disobedience or resistance to authority. The total figure exceeds 30,000 euros.

"The facts speak for themselves: for protests that occurred in 2025 alone, we already have 88 sanctioning procedures open against housing unionism. The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe already warned in 2022 about the excessive use of sanctions in the Spanish state. The Ministry of the Interior has abandoned its own criteria and applies an administrative route with fewer guarantees than the criminal one, generating fear and economic barriers for people who already live in precarious conditions," the organizations denounced in an event from the Ministry of the Interior.

For all these reasons, they demand that the Ministry of the Interior immediately withdraw all sanctions linked to the Les Corts case and the rest of the fines for stopping evictions, the recovery and effective application of the 2022 criteria that guarantee the right to peaceful protest, and the cessation of the use of the administrative route as a "repressive tool" against the housing movement. For now, the Ministry of the Interior has not issued a response to these criticisms.