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•«Va. Anarchist Fights Deportation From SpainMcLEAN (AP) — A US.anarchist arrested in Spain after a squatters’ rights protest has won acquittal on all charges there but faces possible deportation.Peter Gelderloos, 26, who grew up in Vienna, Va., was arrested in Barcelona inApril 2007 and charged with •public disorder and illegal demonstration. He could have received up to six years in prison, an unusually stiff penalty for a public disordercharge.Authorities alleged that* Gelderloos was an organizerof a squatters’ rights protest in a public plaza that created a panic among tourists because it ended with the explosion of an' enormous firecracker. Police said heand other protesters shouted £fWe have a bomb!” before the firecracker was lit.Gelderloos countered that he was a mere bystander. He said it was ridiculous to think that he had organized a protest in Barcelona given that he spoke no Spanish and had only been in the country for a few weeks.Gelderloos argued that he was singled out for his political views. As an anarchist who often dresses'withpolitical T-shirts and some slogans scribbled . on his shoes, police assumed he was suspicious, Gelderloos said.Ultimately,* Gelderloos prevailed in Spanish court — he was acquitted on allcharges last month, a verdict that came nearly two years after his arrest.Now, after being forced to stay in Spain, Gelderloos is fighting a deportation bid by that country’s government. Following a hearing last week, a decision isn’t expected for several weeks. *For much of the past two years, Gelderloos has essentially been required to live in Spain while he awaited trial, although he was able to secure permission for a one-month trip back to the United States last year.The Spanish government cited Gelderloos’ arrest in court papers seeking deportation. Now that Gelderloos has been acquitted, he argues that deportation proceedings should be halted.“I’m fighting deportation because I think borders are an insult and a stupidity,” Gelderloos said in an e-mail interview. “I don’t recognize the legitimacy of any government to tell me I can’t set foot in an entire region of our planet, A deportation would keep me banned from all of Europe, including many people I cafe about, for seven years.” „He also said he wasn’t allowed to work while living inSpain.Gelderloos is best known in the anarchist communityfor his 2005 book, “How Nonviolence Protects the State,”
Newspaper Details
Daily News-Record
Harrisonburg, Virginia, US
Tue, Apr 28, 2009
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Czar W.
NA, 30 Dec 2022
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