Forcible Eviction of 87-Year-Old Madrid Woman Sparks Protest Encampment over Spain’s Housing Crisis

AMY GOODMAN: Today we’re broadcasting from London, tomorrow Copenhagen, and the rest of the week from Berlin. But we’re turning now to the Spanish capital of Madrid. A protest encampment over the cost of housing and housing instability has entered its third day as over 600 residents are now camped in front of the regional government headquarters at the Puerta del Sol plaza to demand new protections for tenants. Tens of thousands of people marched in the streets of Madrid Saturday. Demonstrations are also occurring across Spain.

Protests began Wednesday over the eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal Martín, referred to just as Maricarmen, who was forcibly removed from her home of more than 70 years after an investment fund bought her apartment building and more than tripled, or more, her rent. Police broke down the door of her home and removed Maricarmen, who is 87 years old, on a stretcher as hundreds of supporters gathered outside. She later released a video message to supporters from her hospital bed.

MARÍA DEL CARMEN ABASCAL MARTÍN: [translated] I have not been able to defend my home, but I have fought so others can learn to fight for theirs. My home has been my life, and now I have to leave it behind. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep fighting.

AMY GOODMAN: Protesters, camped in tents with sleeping bags in the Puerta del Sol plaza, say they won’t leave unless meaningful government action is taken.

SARA BARROS: [translated] What we are demanding is that the rental market be regulated, because rents are unaffordable and people simply cannot afford them. There are abuses taking place that can leave vulnerable people out on the street, such as Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman with a disability who has no alternative housing after living in her home for 70 years.

LUCAS GARCIA: [translated] We are going to stay here until things change. There’s talk of a decree on Tuesday, and we will remain here until measures that we consider sufficient are adopted.

JORGE OTXOA: [translated] We are protesting so that we could claim and so the government listens to us, listens to a society that is tired of speculation, tired of corruption and tired of a system that sidelines the vast majority of the population. This is why we are here.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Madrid, Spain, where we’re joined by two guests. Sabina Carrau is the spokesperson for the Sindicato de Inquilinas, the Madrid Tenants’ Union, and Tesh Sidi is a member of the Spanish parliament, member of the progressive coalition Sumar. She’s vice-chair of the Committee on Economy and Digital Transformation. She is also the first Sahrawi to serve in the Spanish parliament, from Western Sahara, is an advocate for Sahrawi rights.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Sabina in Madrid. You’re spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union. Can you explain to a global audience what has taken place, the significance of the eviction of Maricarmen, the 87-year-old tenant who was taken directly to the hospital?

SABINA CARRAU: Yes. First of all, hello, everyone.

Well, what happened on Wednesday with Maricarmen is something that has been building up for years, not only for Maricarmen, but for a lot of people, but particularly for Maricarmen. This is — her eviction did not begin on Wednesday. It began seven years ago when she received the formal notice that she had to leave her home if she didn’t want to pay or could pay that — the rent price of almost three times what she was paying at the moment.

So, there are generations of people here that feel that from the institutions they’re not receiving any solution to any of their problems, for something — a problem such — such a basic problem as having a roof under which to live. So, right now what we have is a lot of furious people, enraged people, that are demanding from the government and from the public institutions that they give us some sort of solution. And we’re also demanding certain specific measures that will be discussed tomorrow in the Council of Ministers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain who the people are in the streets? It’s a reminder, it seems, of the indignados, the indignant, who took to the streets so many years ago. And talk about the Spanish government’s response, Sabina.

SABINA CARRAU: Yeah, well, a lot of people are comparing what happened on Saturday night to 15-M, which was something that happened 15 years ago, where another group of people, a lot of people, during many days, camped out in Sol. This is somewhat different. I mean, the place is the same one, but this is something that we have promoted, not only the Tenants’ Union of Madrid, but also different organizations.

But a very basic difference here is that we have a specific goal, which is we want to change the whole model of housing in Spain. We don’t only want — we have what we have called the Maricarmen decree, which is exactly what’s going to be discussed tomorrow in the Council of Ministers, but it doesn’t end with this. We want to change the whole system.

And if you go — if you go to Sol, you will find that there is not only the Tenants’ Union. There are people from Greenpeace. There are a lot of students that have organized, the whole education union also. I think that we are — this is not only about housing. This has put under discussion a lot of things that also raise a very democratic issue, because people are — were starting to, like, fight against us, and instead of looking up to see who are the people that are in the power that are condemning us to this situation that we are going through.

AMY GOODMAN: Where will — 

SABINA CARRAU: I don’t know if I’ve answered — 

AMY GOODMAN: Where will Maricarmen go now?

SABINA CARRAU: Well, she doesn’t have an alternative. Right now she’s still in hospital. There are a lot of health issues that need to be addressed before she can leave the hospital. And we’re fighting for that also, because she doesn’t have an alternative. She doesn’t have where to go.

AMY GOODMAN: Tesh Sidi, you’re a member of the Spanish parliament. You were a vice-chair of the Committee on Economy and Digital Transformation. If you can talk about the government’s response right now, what the Spanish parliament is doing? And, of course, this goes way beyond Maricarmen. It goes to the whole issue of affordability in Spain, one, to say the least, we are dealing with in the United States, as well.

TESH SIDI: First of all, thank you for having me.

I think the colleague from the Sindicato de Inquilinas explained it very well. I think it’s a crisis in all our system and in our model, because in eight years we have been in this progressive coalition, but our power is not enough to make this change. We need our, like, bigger, bigger — like, the coalition, in this case, we are with socialists, so we need socialists to be more fighter for this to put the agenda of housing, and the right to have a house and the right to have an achievable rent is something we are fighting inside the government to have it and to achieve it.

We know that the Maricarmen case is the case of so many families. And every one of us, especially the class and work — class work, is every day closer to being Maricarmen than to having a house, so that is the big problem. And a lot of people, especially the regional governments, they are still talking about that this is a generation issue, this is a fight between generations. And what we can see in Sol is a lot of anger. And we have to hold this anger. And this anger is against the regional government, but as well against our government. So we have to hold on this, to work on this.

We still work in this Maricarmen decreto, or decree, and in the council, but we need to fight this model. This model is working-class, normal people against very, very rich companies who find in housing and find in a right of having this house, or owner right, they find an investment and very, very, very easy. Like, in Madrid, but in all Spain, our model is really connected to tourism, really connected to having and buying a house to make a speculation. So, people is saying it’s enough, it’s enough. So, we are working really hard to find — at least Maricarmen decreto, or decree, is very a small step, but we know we need to fight more, and we need to fight inside the government.

It’s too late, in my point of view. We’ve been fighting. We put this decree — it’s the second time we bring it to the parliament. But we know that in the parliament we have, as well, the right and extreme-right parties, that they don’t want to help people. They don’t want to fight against the investment companies. They just want to open the doors to all these big companies. And this issue is not only happening in Spain. It’s all around Europe. It’s all around the U.S., because what we are fighting is the right to have an affordable life. So, that is the issue. And I hold — I’ve been yesterday on the protests, but I think we need to work more and more as a member of the government.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does the government — for a global audience, if you can explain Sumar, your junior partner with the governing party, with Pedro Sánchez’s party? How do you protect the elderly and the lifting of the moratorium on the — on evictions that took place after the pandemic?

TESH SIDI: In 2026, in the pandemic, as well, I mean, we’ve been in coalition on the government the last eight years. The last time, the last government, we achieved the first step that is a law about housing and the right to housing. To have a house is in our constitution. This is the first of all. But that law is not enough, because that law — in Spain, we are kind of semi-federal states. So, to apply that law, we need the regions. We need Madrid. We need Catalonia. We need all our nations to make it real. Do you know? So, that is the huge problem we find when we make any law or we make any step. We find the fight between the socialism and the right-wing or extreme right-wing parties.

But we need to hold with that. We need to work on that. And politics is talking, is dialogue and to find a way to solve people’s problems. So, we are on that way to solve people’s problems, even if it’s the first step. But we need to go further and further against this system, who is killing our people, is killing generations and is putting people out of their houses, their memories.

Maricarmen could be a grandma of any of us. I mean, like, she’s a symbol of this crisis, but there are a lot of families every day are evacuated from their houses, from their memories, from their neighborhoods. But we put this this problem in during the COVID, and then we brought it, as well, in February of this year. But right and extreme-right parties, they, like, just put it down. They didn’t vote in favor of people. So we are fighting that. But I think Maricarmen is in — 

AMY GOODMAN: Tesh — 

TESH SIDI: — a point of it. Like, sorry, I cannot hear. Yeah?

AMY GOODMAN: Tesh Sidi, we’re about to wrap up, but I wanted to ask you a question, as the only Sahrawi member of the Spanish parliament. The Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez takes pride in being one of the most progressive world leaders when it comes to Palestine. However, when it comes to another occupation, Morocco-occupied Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, where you and your family are originally from, he’s joined President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in support of Morocco’s so-called autonomy plan to make the occupation permanent. In this last minute we have, what is your response?

TESH SIDI: This is an exactly perfect example of how is the hypocrisy of socialism, I mean, especially of this government, when it’s related to Western Sahara or related to housing. The propaganda and the marketing they have around is that they are quite progressive people. But the people who hold with them and hold the government and support the government, we know that is not enough.

So, the change of our, like, commitment, because we are, as well, the colonial state — Spain is the colonial state of Western Sahara — we have so much responsibility of what happens to Sahrawi people, and especially people like me who was born in a refugee camp. And one of the commitment why I take a step from software engineering and move to politics is because of that change, because 2021 — because I felt like a Spanish person and, as well, a Sahrawi person needs to be more committed on politics to change and to have a voice.

And I’m very glad to do that step, because since I’m here in the latest week, we achieved the first law in 50 years that, first of all, recognized that Spain were — like, colonized Western Sahara. And I don’t know if you know, but Sahrawi people who were born under colonialism, they lost their Spanish IDs, their Spanish nationality. They took them from them. So, we do — with this law, we give it back. But the most important is the not giving the Sahrawi people the nationality back. The most important things is memory, is that we made a little bit of justice, and we put Sahrawi on media and on the table. And I know, as the housing problem, this is only the first step on recognizing Sahrawi self-determination.

AMY GOODMAN: Tesh Sidi, I want to thank you for being with us, member of the Spanish parliament, with Sumar, the junior partner with the Spanish government, also the only Sahrawi in the Spanish parliament, and Sabina Carrau, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union, both speaking to us from Madrid, Spain.

Coming up, Britain’s Gaza Secrets Exposed. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Sheel, Sheel,” “Carry, Carry,” performed by the NYC Palestinian Youth Choir.

Get NationofChange in your inbox

Independent reporting every weekday. No paywall, no advertisers, no corporate owner. Free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.