Yesterday morning, Tuesday August 2nd, Spanish police took over Puerta del Sol in Madrid and prevented access to the square all night. The Spanish protest movement quickly reacted. ROAR Mag, along with other blogs, has reported and collected graphic material. See yesterday’s report and several videos detailing the cleaning operation.

In a telling display of the government’s growing apprehension of the movement, some 300 officers from the national and municipal police were called in to remove a small core group of a mere 90 indignados. All access routes were blocked off by at least 20 riot police vans, as a helicopter hovered above. No violence was used and no arrests were made, but plenty of common property was confiscated and destroyed.

However, the Spanish protest movement keeps defying summer related predictions..

Given the unbearable heat of summer, most madrileños generally flee the city to the countryside in the month of august. This is probably why the police only made their decisive move now, instead of a few weeks ago. They expected less resistance than before. But tonight, it looks like no one ever really left Madrid. Tens of thousands of people have completely blocked Madrid’s city center in a spontaneous outburst of indignation at the disrespectful removal of protesters from the movement’s ground-zero. At 20:00, thousands of indignados were crammed into all six access routes to Sol, with a genuine army of police (including at least 50 vans, according to El País) keeping them out. When they realized they couldn’t take the square, the protesters quickly dissolved into a dozen side-streets and regrouped on a number of key locations: Cibeles, Atocha and Congreso, among them. For hours now, protesters have been blocking all the main traffic arteries in the city center. The mass protest is now reported to be headed back towards Sol for a second time, in another attempt to take back the square.

A crowded assembly was organised in Plaza Mayor, the alternative to Puerta del Sol for the night. Police has evicted those who have spent the night there this morning.

The following video follows the different protests in the streets around Puerta del Sol during the day and some of the protests around Madrid last night:

Here’s the online stream of another indignado last night.

Currently, police are still not allowing people in the square and there are reports of Madrid’s city centre being under police control. Many blame the Pope’s visit later on in August for yesterday and today’s actions as reported by Spanish Revolution blog.

According to rumours the authorities have decided to clear Puerta del Sol and the encampment in the Paseo del Prado because of the upcoming visit of the pope, in mid august. This visit is going to cost the Spanish taxpayer milions of dollars. People are pretty indignant about that. When you walk around the city you can already hear some of them warning you: ‘Watch your wallet! The pope is coming!’ After what happened today, mister Ratzinger can be sure to receive a boiling welcome from the indignados.

#nopararemos is currently very active on Twitter.