Videos of Madrid Prostitutes and Clients Put on Youtube

A Spanish neighborhood watch association hopes that the video-sharing website you tube can help clean up their streets of the prostitution that they say the local government has done nothing to curb.

The residents of Montera, one of the main shopping streets in the heart of Madrid, have posted 30 videos recorded on hand-held cameras of prostitutes and their pimps to show what they say is the regular street traffic they suffer night after night.

The videos appear to show prostitutes negotiating with clients and then going into a doorway that neighbors say is used as a brothel.

Hetaria, an association that defends the rights of prostitutes in Spain, has denounced the residents' actions for breaching the prostitutes' right to privacy. The Spanish Data Protection Agency has announced that it is investigating whether the recording of these videos breaks any privacy laws, especially now that the videos are available on the web. Residents could find themselves facing fines of up to €600,000 (£415,000).

The Montera residents' association has defended its actions, saying: "The videos barely reflect what is really going on, which is impossible to film without being lynched by the prostitutes and pimps, who have taken over the street as if it were their own." They argue that the videos show a public space, not private property, and do not target specific individuals. The neighbors say that there are 100 prostitutes working within the space of barely 30 meters.

Although the local town hall has promised to install CCTV cameras, residents say that will not solve the problem. They argue that the only thing that has changed recently is the nationality of the prostitutes, who previously were mainly Latin Americans, but now tend to come from eastern Europe. "We have to bring an end to this," one neighbor, who has lived on the street for eight years, told El Mundo newspaper.