Amnesty International Report 2000 - Spain

Head of state: King Juan Carlos I de Borbón
Head of government: José María Aznar López
Capital: Madrid
Population: 39.3 million
Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes

In November the Basque armed group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), Basque Homeland and Freedom, announced that it was ending its indefinite cease-fire. The Basque peace process had survived more than a year, although troubled by serious and persistent "street violence" by some nationalist groups and allegations that law enforcement officers continued to torture suspected ETA members. Judges pursued investigations into the 1980s "dirty war" waged against ETA by the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups, which included officers of the security forces and hired gunmen linked at the highest levels with the former Spanish administration. In December, 16 years after the abduction of two suspected ETA members, José Antonio Lasa and José Ignacio Zabala, the trial opened before the National Court of suspected GAL members, including a former Civil Guard general, a former civil governor of Guipúzcoa, two former Civil Guard officers, and a former secretary of state for security. Charges included murder of the two men, belonging to an armed band, and illegal detention. There were allegations of ill-treatment in police custody and many prisoners alleged ill-treatment by custodial staff. Excessive force was attributed to Civil Guards in cases of shootings of unarmed civilians, and police officers were criticized for disproportionate action against demonstrators in various parts of Spain. Effective impunity continued to be enjoyed by law enforcement officers charged with or convicted of acts of torture and ill-treatment. As thousands of immigrants, including some children, attempted to cross from North Africa to Spain in tiny boats and rubber dinghies, many perishing in the Straits of Gibraltar, there were growing concerns about racist attacks on sub-Saharan and North African immigrants in various parts of Spain.

Basque peace process

In June, a year after the last killing carried out by ETA, AI published a report stressing the belief that respect for human rights is vital to the future of peace in Spain and the Basque Country. The report urged the Spanish authorities to revoke immediately the laws under which terrorism suspects can be held incommunicado for up to five days with access only to officially appointed lawyers, subject to special restrictions. It also recommended abandoning the practice of incommunicado detention and that of blindfolding and hooding detainees. It called for interrogations to be recorded on video both as a safeguard for detainees and as a means of protecting Civil Guards and police officers from false accusations. The report welcomed the introduction of a law awarding compensation to victims of "terrorist acts" since 1968, but stressed the need for a review of all cases since that time involving conviction of public officials for torture or serious injury and ill-treatment, to ensure that those victims too received fair compensation. The authorities were urged to ensure that the GAL suspects – most of whose trials were still pending – were tried in accordance with international norms, free of any taint of impunity. AI recommended that the authorities reverse the practice of dispersing Basque prisoners throughout the Spanish peninsula, islands and the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

AI separately called on ETA to put an immediate and definitive end to killings, kidnappings and hostage-taking, and to cease committing violent and intimidatory acts, such as arson, bombings and death threats, which had continued against political representatives, companies, newspapers, judicial figures, law enforcement officers and others since the beginning of the cease-fire.

In October the Spanish Interior Ministry replied that it was satisfied that the security forces and courts were rigorous custodians of the constitutional rights of all detainees and defendants. It also stated that, in September, it had decided to transfer 105 ETAprisoners to prisons closer to their homes, including in the Basque Country.

In November, after ETA declared the end of the cease-fire, AI again appealed to the group to respect human rights, irrespective of the existence of a peace process, and stated that human rights were never negotiable.

Alleged torture, ill-treatment and excessive force

Individual ETA suspects continued to allege that acts of torture or ill-treatment were inflicted upon them by Civil Guards or national police officers at time of arrest, during transit to police stations or Civil Guard premises, and while being held incommunicado. There were persistent references to asphyxiation by the placing of a plastic bag over the head and to repeated beatings and forced exercises during interrogation. Some suspects alleged they had been sexually abused.

Complaints of ill-treatment, including beatings with truncheons, punches, kicks and slaps, were also made by people detained in various parts of Spain by local police, national police, Civil Guards and the Basque autonomous police, Ertzaintza .

In January a baton charge by national police officers against students demonstrating at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB), Autonomous University of Barcelona, reportedly resulted in injuries to 19 people, including five officers. In September the High Court of Justice of Catalonia ruled that the police action was "disproportionate", obstructing the students' right to freedom of expression and assembly. Other reports referred to excessive use of force by police against North African immigrants queuing for work in Jaen in January and against demonstrators, mainly of North African origin, seeking compensation for flood damage in Ceuta in October, when up to 17 people were reportedly injured. Violent attacks on immigrants by neo-Nazi groups and others in Catalonia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands were being investigated by the police and Civil Guard.

• ETA suspect Nekane Txarpartegi was arrested in Tolosa (Guipúzcoa) in March by Civil Guards. She was reportedly held incommunicado for five days. She alleged that, before being taken for interrogation in Madrid, she was driven to a wood near Etxegarate. During the journey she was hit on the head and shoulder. She was forced to get out of the car and kneel and a gun was pointed at her head in a simulation of execution. Insulating tape was placed round her hands and legs, her hands were cuffed, her legs tied with a cord and her head covered with a plastic bag (practice known as " la bolsa"). She was then beaten again. She claimed that throughout the days of interrogation by Civil Guards at Tres Cantos, Madrid, she was held under restraint and beaten mainly by "protected" hands on her head and shoulder, continually subjected to the bolsa, sexually abused, with fingers inserted in her vagina, threatened with rape, and kicked each time she fell to the ground. She later received treatment at the Hospital Gregorio Marañon. A medical report from the prison of Soto del Real (Madrid) referred to a number of injuries.

Alleged ill-treatment in prisons

Reports were received of ill-treatment by custodial staff, as well as of poor conditions and medical neglect, involving prisoners from Villabona (Asturias), Ponent Lleida (Barcelona), Badajoz, Soto del Real (Madrid), Villanubla (Valladolid), Dueñas (Palencia), Jaen II and elsewhere. There were complaints that punishment of prisoners included shackling them to a bed for many hours or even days. In some instances a single case of suspected ill-treatment appeared to set off a chain reaction among prisoners who, after protesting about ill-treatment of other inmates, were themselves ill-treated. Often counter-complaints were lodged against prisoners by guards. The non-governmental human rights association Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España investigated conditions in 24 prisons. Its report, partly funded by the prison administration service, referred to ill-treatment, overcrowding, medical neglect, poor food, lack of activities and a general failure to individualize treatment.

• Jesús Amador del Val, imprisoned at La Moraleja (Dueñas-Palencia), claimed that in March he was beaten by eight guards in an exercise yard after he had accidentally stumbled against a guard while passing through a metal detector. He alleged that he was shackled to a bed by arms and feet for 18 hours before a doctor arrived. Two other prisoners, José Quilis Iniesta and Daniel Ramírez Córdoba, in an adjacent yard, claimed they heard Jesús Amador del Val, who has AIDS, shouting for his medication and then being beaten. They alleged that, after making a protest, they were themselves beaten, while restrained, by up to 15 guards, both in the yard and later in their cells. After the beating they too were shackled to their beds with their arms crossed for 18 hours, without food or water. Hearing the beating, a fourth prisoner, José Martínez Camino, reportedly set fire to his cell in an attempt to raise the alarm, and was then in his turn beaten and placed for several days in an isolation cell. Judicial complaints were lodged by Jesús Amador del Val, Daniel Ramírez and José Quilis and by the latter's mother, María Dolores Iniesta Martínez, who said she had seen her son covered with bruises. Some prison guards reportedly also lodged complaints of assault against the prisoners.

Civil Guard shootings

There were several reports of Civil Guard shootings, some fatal, of unarmed civilians. They appeared to involve excessive use of force and judicial inquiries were conducted during the year. According to law, arms may only be used where there is a reasonably serious risk to the life or physical integrity of an officer or to that of third persons. The death of a woman in Seville in April focused attention on a number of other serious incidents.

• In April Miriam Gómez Cuadrado, a passenger in a friend's car attempting to escape a breathalyzer test, died after being shot by a Civil Guard in Seville. Two officers pursued the car for four kilometres before one, a shooting instructor, aimed his gun at the car. A bullet pierced the left rear door and struck the frame of the driver's seat before entering Miriam Gómez' left lung and heart and lodging in the pelvis. The officer, who reportedly maintained he had, in legitimate defence, fired at a back tyre to stop the car, was suspended from work and remained at conditional liberty pending the result of a judicial inquiry. An internal Civil Guard inquiry reportedly questioned whether there could be "well-founded reasons" for deploying a weapon in such circumstances, even though the driver had made "risky manoeuvres".

Effective impunity of law enforcement officers

In September the Interior Minister withdrew the award of a medal to a lieutenant-colonel of the Civil Guard suspected of involvement in two GAL crimes. In addition, the Defence Ministry reportedly froze the promotion to colonel of another Civil Guard officer, allegedly involved in the murder in 1984 by GAL of Santiago Brouard, a leading member of the Basque nationalist coalition party, Herri Batasuna. However, lengthy judicial proceedings, token sentences and the availability of pardons continued to cast doubt on the will of the courts and authorities to eliminate torture and ill-treatment by public officials. In July, three Civil Guards convicted of the illegal detention and torture of ETA member Kepa Urra Guridi were partially pardoned by the Council of Ministers. This ensured that, despite a September 1998 Supreme Court ruling that the officers had indeed committed acts of torture, they would remain in service. Another concern was the refusal of police officers to provide evidence against fellow officers charged with a crime and the consequent avoidance of conviction.

• In April the Supreme Court severely criticized the fact that it was forced to confirm the acquittal of three national police officers charged with the beating and rape of Rita Margarete R., a Brazilian woman, while in custody in Bilbao in 1995. In 1998 the Provincial Court of Vizcaya accepted that she had been beaten and raped at the police station, but acquitted the officers charged because of lack of evidence identifying those responsible. The Supreme Court was reported as saying that it was incompatible with the democratic rule of law that an "extremely serious and proven case of rape" remained unpunished because of "archaic corporativist ideas or false camaraderie". Two officers were subsequently suspended from duty pending further inquiries.

AI country report

• Spain: A briefing on human rights concerns in relation to the Basque peace process (AI Index: EUR 41/001/99)