Junts, ERC, Comuns and CUP are seeking parliamentary scrutiny of proceedings by the Spanish Data Protection Agency, known by its Spanish initials AEPD, against media outlets that reported on police officers allegedly infiltrating social and independence movements.

The parties want representatives of the affected outlets, the Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya, Catalonia’s professional journalists’ body, and the AEPD director to appear before the Parliament of Catalonia, according to VilaWeb’s parliamentary report.

For Catalonia residents trying to consult reporting on the undercover-police cases, the immediate consequence could be the removal of articles. VilaWeb says the AEPD has ordered it to delete several articles and make them unavailable while the proceedings are under way.

VilaWeb says it faces a minimum €7,000 fine

According to El Punt Avui’s account of VilaWeb’s announcement, the outlet says the AEPD opened sanction proceedings over articles that identified information about an undercover officer.

VilaWeb says the case concerns a fictitious name used by an officer, an unblurred photograph from a protest, and the initials of the officer’s brother. It says it faces a fine of at least €7,000 and has been given ten working days to submit arguments.

“The attack on VilaWeb, added to the attack on La Directa, which carried out the investigative work, is an unprecedented attack on press freedom,” VilaWeb director Vicent Partal said.

Partal said VilaWeb had begun the process of challenging the proceedings and would take the case to European institutions if necessary. The allegations and proposed sanction described by VilaWeb have not been presented in the supplied material as a final AEPD decision.

La Directa case to be added to parliamentary inquiry

The four groups had already said they would register a parliamentary declaration supporting La Directa, after the AEPD began sanction proceedings over its reports on four National Police officers who were allegedly infiltrated in social movements in 2022 and 2023.

They also proposed that La Directa explain the case to the Parliament’s inquiry commission on police infiltration in social and political movements. The commission would add the sanction case to its existing work, according to reporting by Público.

  • Junts deputy Francesc Dalmases described La Directa’s work as investigative journalism.
  • CUP deputy Xavier Pellicer called the decision a “blatant threat to freedom of information”.
  • Comuns deputy Andrés Garcia Berrio said La Directa’s work had been carried out lawfully.

VilaWeb says it will submit its arguments within the ten-working-day period set out in the AEPD proceedings.

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