Anonymous 'hacktivists' shut police, government and court websites

All three organisations assure it has been 'business as usual' since the cyber-attack, but that they had 'several admin headaches' as a result.

Anonymous, which – as its name suggests – is an unknown 'hacktivist' group which operates across the country, tampering with websites to make its political views, largely left-wing, known to authorities.

This time, they were acting within their soi-disant 'Operation Free Catalunya' campaign, which has involved a series of hack attacks ever since the previous national government triggered Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to strip the north-eastern region of its self-rule and financial control in response to the disputed independence referendum of October 1.

A message emblazoned across the three organisations' websites read: “Hello Spain. We see you're still harming Catalunya. This is not a joke. We'll damage your government, too. This is a form of protest. You won't stop us!”

Anonymous does not have any history of violence, only of cyber 'vandalism'.

Among its most significant protests involved blocking access to the Constitutional Court's website, Tribunalconstitucional.es, back in October.

The page showed an error message in English reading, 'This site can't be reached', for several hours.

Photograph by Anonymous