Spanish Police Fine Woman For Posting Facebook Pic Of Cop Parked In Handicap Spot

Chris | InformationLiberation
Aug. 18, 2015

Last week we posted a story where Spanish police used a new law to fine a man anywhere from €100 to €600 for calling them 'slackers' on Facebook, this week we find out they've fined a woman some €800 for posting a picture to Facebook of one of their cop cars parked in a handicap spot.

The Guardian reports:

A Spanish woman has been fined €800 (£570) under the country’s controversial new gagging law for posting a photograph of a police car parked illegally in a disabled bay.

The unnamed woman, a resident of Petrer in Alicante, south-east Spain, posted the photo on her Facebook page with the comment “Park where you bloody well please and you won’t even be fined”.

The police tracked her down within 48 hours and fined her.

The Citizens Security Law, popularly known as the gagging law and which came into force on 1 July, prohibits “the unauthorised use of images of police officers that might jeopardise their or their family’s safety or that of protected facilities or police operations”.

Amnesty International condemned the law, saying that photographing police was vital in cases when excessive force had been used. Fines under this section of the law range from €600 to €30,000.

Fernando Portillo, a spokesman for the local police, said the officers had parked in the disabled bay because they had been called to deal with an incident of vandalism in a nearby park. A rapid response is essential if they are to catch the offenders “in flagranti”, he told local media, adding that in an emergency the police park where they can.

The police claim they were responding to an emergency and the woman "impugned their honor" by claiming otherwise.

“We would have preferred a different solution but they have the legal right to impose the fine,” police spokesman Fernando Portillo told local media.

Yes, no doubt they would have preferred not to shake her down for making them look bad, they just had to, because, you know, they have the "legal right" and all.

This law is every cop in the world's wet dream.