Pro Abortion protesters displayed a banner in front of the El oso y el madroño, Sol, during the anti abortion demonstration in Madrid on Sunday. I arrived on the scene soon after the banner was torn apart by anti abortion demonstrators. Images show the sequence of events form this point. Madrid, Spain. 07/03/2010.
When I arrived some anti abortion demonstrators were ripping apart the banner of the pro abortionists while others were shouting at the pro abortion protestors. By the time I got close to the scuffle I saw a couple of people making fist gestures at some of the pro abortion protestors. Some men even managed to hit a pro abortionist in the back.
An other man also made threatening fist gestures and hit out at one of the protestors, but no one was hurt. Others were arguing aggressively with some of the protestors.
However, there were a number of people who intervened to prevent the anti abortion demonstrators from seriously hitting the protestors.
The police then arrived to remove the pro abortion protestors from the scene. They were taken to the side of the old town hall, where the identity of the protestors was checked.
I followed the police leading the protestors to the side of the old town hall. The police led the protestors in a quick and running pace. At one point a police officer grabbed one of the female protestors to hurry her pace. (see photos) The police also kept a woman anti abortion demonstrator from pursuing and hitting the protestors, who by this time were under the control of the police. (photo of woman in white coat with flag at the side of the town hall.)
In the last photo I counted 43 protestors who were asked to stand in the small side street at the back of the town hall.
I left soon after since the situation seemed to have been defused by this time.
(note about photos: I converted some photos into black and white and highlighted in colour the pro abortion protestors. Furthermore, in many photos I was not using the viewfinder of the camera to shoot the photos. I did not want to attract attention either from the demonstrators and later the police. Some demonstrators aggressively shouted at a video photographer and later the police checked the identity of two other photographers near the town hall. I was not checked but I did have the press pass of the organisers.)
