Spain: Campaign against police brutality
01 May 1999
In Barcelona a campaign has been launched to protest at the lack of police accountability following a recent increase in allegations of brutality. The Basta de impunidad policial (Stop police impunity) campaign has four main objectives: the resignation of Julia Garcia Valdecasas (the Interior ministry delegate in Catalunya) the suspension of the Plan de la Policia 2000 (Police Plan 2000), new video surveillance legislation and the disbanding of the National Police Information Brigade and the shutting of immigrant detention centres. There was a 2,000 strong demonstration in Barcelona in June in support of these objectives.
The Interior Ministry delegate, Julia Garcia Valdecasas is said to be responsible for a number of controversial police actions. These include a police charge at Barcelona's Universidad Autonoma, the intimidatory use of guns during demonstrations and the drawing up of blacklists of members of social movements (see Statewatch vol 9 no 2). The campaign also opposes the Plan de la Policia 2000, which will introduce business principles to policing and levelled criticism at the setting up of immigrant detention centres, where immigrants are forced to endure inhuman conditions because they don't have access to the necessary documentation to reside "legally" in Spain.
The harshest criticism is directed against the National Police Information Brigade which is accused of continuing the work carried out by the Brigada politico-social under Franco's dictatorship. Commenting on a police report on 15 March, a Barcelona judge said it, "looks as though it was written by the Brigada politico-social of Franquismo which, luckily, is extinct, rather than by a police force operating under the rule of law." The Brigade is accused of arbitrarily arresting people and asking them for documents, carrying out surveillance of meeting places and Okupa social centres and squatted houses, of tapping telephones, following people and making threats, as well as drawing up blacklists of activists. They are alleged to be responsible for a number of violent incidents and the selective arrest of individuals belonging to social movements.
In Barcelona last April five people were arrested following a bicycle demonstration against evictions which was broken up by police (see Statewatch vol 9 no 2); they were freed after 36 hours, as judge Fernandez Oubina granted them habeas corpus. Recent incidents include the arrest and alleged assault on 29 April of four youths participating in a day of music and theatre organised by Joves sense Espai (Youth without Space) to demand sites to carry out cultural activities from the local authorities in Villareal. The assembly was peaceful and without incident until two police officers entered the building to check documents. The four youths say they asked for an explanation as no crime was being committed, when five plainclothes officers leapt from a police car and, without identifying themselves, attacked the youths.
They were taken to the Castellon National Police station, where it is alleged one of the youths was struck in the face with a chain that police confiscated from theatrical paraphernalia; another youth was pulled with the chain around his neck while he was beaten, and a third, who emerged with a cut to his face, was forced to sign a document in which he admitted attacking the police. In the precinct, they were denied habeas corpus, use of the toilet and medical assistance, although one youth urgently needed medicines he takes daily. They were also reprimanded for speaking in Valencian dialect. On their release they said they were held in the cold and unhygienic conditions, there were microphones in their cells to listen in on conversations and complained of the abuse they had suffered.
Contr@Infos, Boletin Semanal de Controinformacion 12.5.99, 29.6.99