Spain police block protesters\' access to parliament

Spanish police blocked roads leading to parliament on Tuesday as "indignant" protesters rallied in Madrid to decry an economic crisis they say has "kidnapped" democracy. Police in soft caps and without riot gear cut off main routes to the lower house Congress with a double layer of metal barricades, backed by riot police vans and with a helicopter hovering overhead. In Madrid's Plaza de Neptuno square about 100 metres (yards) from the Congress, dozens of demonstrators began to assemble in front of the barricades several hours ahead of the main rally. "Today is a key day to attack the state system and the politicians," said 23-year-old engineering student Jose Luis Sanchez, who travelled from the northern city of Burgos to take part. About another 200 demonstrators gathered opposite the city's Atocha railway station watched by police. They chanted: "Rescue democracy," or "This is not a crisis, it's a swindle." Carmen Rivero, a 40-year-old photographer and "indignant" activist, said she travelled overnight in a bus with 50 protesters from the southern city of Granada. Police searched the bus and checked the identity cards of all aboard when it arrived in Madrid in the early morning, she said."We think this is an illegal government. We want the parliament to be dissolved, a referendum and a constituent assembly so that the people can have a say in everything," she said. "We don't agree with the cuts they have made." The protesters, called to action by the "indignant" movement against economic injustice, planned to march to the Congress as deputies emerged from the parliament building in the afternoon. Another 100 or so protesters were scattered across the city centre's Plaza de Espana square. Romulo Banares, a 40-year-old artist with sun glasses displaying a dollar and a euro sign in each lens, brandished a real estate sign reading: "Spain for sale". "This is not a real democracy. This is a democracy kidnapped by the parties in collaboration with the economic powers and the people have no say in it," Banares said. The crisis, blamed on the collapse of a speculation-driven real estate boom, has plunged Spain into recession, throwing millions out of work and many families into poverty. But protesters say government policies, including pay cuts and sales tax rises to rein in the public deficit, hurt the poor unfairly. Protesters blame the crisis on corruption and financial and European political systems that they brand unjust. The offering of a rescue loan of up to 100 billion euros ($125 billion) by Spain's eurozone partners to rescue the country's stricken banks has fanned their anger. Clashes have broken out on the fringes of several mass protests in Spain over recent months, with police firing rubber bullets and beating demonstrators with batons. Spanish media reported that 1,300 police officers would be deployed for Tuesday's demonstration. The "indignados" are also known as "May 15" after the date of mass protests that broke out across the country in 2011 and activists occupied the central Puerta del Sol square for weeks.