Spanish Repression Against Catalan Social Movements
After 30 years from the beginning of the “democratic” regime, the spanish state still doesn’t accept the dissident voices, using every kind of repression against them. Methods such as torture, lies and criminalisation are used nowodays by the Spanish institutions.
In Catalonia there are a lot of examples of this state violence. The spanish police forces (Policia Nacional and Guardia Civil) have been accused of all kinds of abuse of power. In recent years, a new police brigade is being introduced in the northern area of Catalonia. It is Mossos d’Esquadra, described by the Spanish State as a catalan police force, at the mercy of the catalan autonomous government, who is at the same time, at the mercy of the spanish government.
This new police force, started out in 2003, arresting three people from a small catalan village called Torà, under the anti-terrorist laws. One of the arrested, Jordi Vilaseca, was hospitalised after five days of solitary confinement in a police station.
During that period, Jordi was beaten and drugged by the officers. The torture of Jordi Vilaseca was proven fact due to detailed medical analysis in the hospital, which reported anfetamines in his blood ingested for sure during several days of detention by the ‘catalan’ police. Following that, Jordi and the other two arrested during this time, were jailed in a Madrid Prison, over 620 km. away from his home town. After two months, the families had pay €30.000 to the government for their bail bond for temporary release. The three people, who are still on bail are currently waiting a trial date to be set by the spanish high courts.
At the same time, Jordi has since reported the various levels of tortures which he had suffered at the hands of the ‘Catalan’ police, has since decided to take it to court.
Finally, the judges consideration has confirmed twice that there’s not enough evidences of tortures (!), saying that is not necessary to still investigate what happened during their arrest. No police officers involved in Jordi’s case has been questioned or interrogated and it looks like there’s no possibility of finding out just who was involved in torturing Jordi.
This practise is used very often by the spanish institutions, who still adhere to the line that “torture is a thing of the past”. However lots of organizations such as Amnesty International, Alerta Solidària or OSPDH (organization that belongs to University of Barcelona) report that torture is widespread in police stations and prisons throughout the spanish state. Such acts of torture is being systematically silenced by the mass media, in spite of case’s such as what happened to Jordi, there is evidence available that can’t be ignored.
The Spanish State Tortures & Murders!
Freedom for Jordi from Torà! Stop the Torture!
Freedom for all catalan political prisoners!
