Since 2014, Spanish government, backed up by an overall majority in Congress and Senate, designed a group of measures and law reforms, commonly known by the population as “The Gag Law”. Ultimately, Spanish Congress passed this law on 2015, March 26th.

A panel of human rights experts from the United Nations said they were concerned about the Public Security Law and the Penal Code initiatives, which they say violate Spanish citizens’ human rights.

The platform No Somos Delito (WeAreNotCrime), formed by over a hundred citizens’ organizations, activists, and jurists, was born with the intention of informing citizens about the meaning of these reforms, which restrict fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and assembly in the name of “citizens’ security”, and to pressure the government into withdrawing them immediately.

One of the objectives of No Somos Delito is public awareness of their message, so they can mobilize people and collect signatures against this law, and also generate criticism from media and governments outside Spain, in order to achieve its repeal. To that end we created the Holographic Protest, the first of its kind in the world. On March 26th, the same day the Gag Law was approved, we launched a teaser website which encouraged users to participate in the demonstration in a virtual way: uploading their pictures, recording their shouts and sending their protest messages. At that time, we did not reveal the location where the protest would take place, in order to avoid confrontation with the Spanish authorities.

On April 10th, we projected the protest on a 7x4 meters screen in front of the Parliament building, taking advantage of a filming permit.

In addition to the protest projection, we used a special cabin for No Somos Delito spokespeople to be interviewed as holograms in real time, a feature that captivated the media.

We documented it in a short film that was distributed some days later.

The campaign was a global hit in media all around the world, with an estimated earned media of 16 million euros, and a global audience of over 800 million people. It was covered by the main national and international press, TV and online media, and made into the front page and editorials of some of them.

17.857 people participated virtually in the demonstration. The online petition for the withdrawal of the law was signed by almost 330.000 people.

Our protest gathered over 50.000 tweets and about 400 million Twitter impressions.

Media and people saw the campaign as a historic event, both in the struggle for civil rights and from the technological point of view. They debated its significance, how it surpassed the obstacles the new law poses, or even how it makes possible new forms of exercising the right of expression and the freedom of assembly.

NoSomosDelito got the commitment of political parties other than the government´s one, that the Gag Law will be repealed. November 2015 general election results, somehow influenced by opposition to the Gag Law, made this repeal only a question of time.