The right of assembly is being undermined by the Spanish government, in an attempt to reduce the number and the magnitude of the protests against their policies. In fact, demonstrations around Parliament building have been banned for months. Given that our initiative was to confront the party in power at the local authority (Madrid Council), regional (Autonomous Community of Madrid) and national levels, we were facing major administrative and police obstacles in the creation and filming of the holographic protest, and in the distribution of the produced material.

Since last year, Spanish government, backed up by an absolute majority in Congress and Senate, has been designing a group of measures and law reforms, commonly known by the population as “The Gag Law”. Ultimately, Spanish Congress passed this law on March 26th.

A panel of human rights experts from the United Nations said they were concerned about the Public Security Law and the Penal Code initiatives, which they say will violate Spanish people’s human rights.

The platform NoSomosDelito (WeAreNotCrime), formed by over a hundred citizens’ organizations, activists, and jurists, is born with the intention of informing citizens about the meaning of these reforms, which restrict fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and assembly in the name of “citizens’ security”, and to pressure the government into withdrawing them immediately.

One of the objectives of NoSomosDelito is public awareness of their message, so they can mobilize people and collect signatures against this law, and also generate criticism from media and governments outside Spain, in order to prevent its entry into force. To that end we created the Holographic Protest, the first of its kind. On March 26th, the same day the Gag Law was approved, we launched a teaser website which encouraged users to participate in the demonstration in a virtual way: uploading their pictures, recording their shouts and sending their protest messages. At that time we did not revealed the location where the protest would take place, in order to avoid confrontation with the Spanish authorities.

On April 10th, we projected the protest on a 7x4 meters screen in front of the Parliament building, taking advantage of a filming permit. Media covered the event worldwide, while we documented it in a short film that was distributed some days later.

Audience were greatly drawn to the content, for several reasons. First of all, it was a creative way of protest which has never been done before. Secondly, it defied the banning of demonstrations in front of Parliament. We chose the most difficult place, but also the most symbolic. It also reflected in a relevant way the abolition of rights the law has introduced: flesh and blood protest will not be tolerated.

Media found the story interesting not only for its political and social content, but also from a technological point of view, and as a historical milestone in activism.

The campaign was a global hit in media all around the world, with an estimated earned media (at the time of writing) of 16 million euros, and a global audience of over 800 million. It was covered by the main national and international press, TV and online media, and made into the front page and editorials of some of them, such as the French newspaper Le Monde, The New York Times and The Boston Globe. It also appeared in countless local and specialized media.

17.857 people participated in the demonstration via the website, although after that moment, participations kept rising over 20.000. The online petition for the withdrawal of the law was signed by more than 330.000 people.

Our protest gathered over 50.000 tweets and about 400 million Twitter impressions.

Media and people saw the campaign as a historic event, both in the struggle for civil rights and from the technological point of view. They debated its significance, how it surpassed the obstacles the new law poses, or even how it makes possible new forms of exercising the right of expression and the freedom of assembly.

Ultimately, the protest was debated in a session of the Spanish Congress.

NoSomosDelito (WeAreNotCrime) needed to show Spanish citizens and the international public opinion the consequences of the approval of the “Gag Law” in Spain. To that end, we created an original event that would be relevant to media professionals and would get into the news: the first holographic protest in History, organized by NoSomosDelito.

This content shows the key aspects and values of the brand, NoSomosDelito platform against the Gag Law: the defense of people’s rights, especially those of free assembly, and the need to maintain civil protest against government’s injustices.