Uprising continue in Spain

Spaniards remain camped out at Madrid’s main square, despite tight security, to protest against the government’s austerity measures and growing unemployment rate.

Thousands of angry protesters have packed the capital’s Puerta Del Sol square, since the protests began two weeks ago, and promised to stay out in makeshift tents until Sunday, a Press TV correspondent reported on Sunday.

The leading protest group known as “the indignants” once again took to Madrid’s main square to decide whether to carry on a vigil, AFP reported.

In Barcelona, fresh clashes erupted between protesters and police amid a mass celebration following Barcelona’s Champions League 3-1 win against Manchester United.

On Friday, similar clashes in Spain’s second-largest city left over a hundred protesters wounded after police ordered them to move their tents out of Catalonia Square.

Jorge Naroja, a spokesman for the “Democracia Real Ya” (Real Democracy Now) compared protests in Spain with the anti-government movements in the Middle East and North Africa, saying what they have in common is protesters’ courage and their determination to fight corrupt politicians and dictators.

The protests in Spain are inspired by the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt as pas part of the Islamic Awakening that has been sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa.

Spain has been witnessing demonstrations against the government’s austerity measures since mid-May.

The massive protests came after the government of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodrigues Zapatero introduced a slew of drastic austerity measures.

The measures include the cutting of civil servant wages, as part of its plans to curb the budget deficit from 11 percent a year earlier to within three percent of the GDP, a limit set by the European Union by 2013.