Kingdom of Spain
Head of state: King Juan Carlos I de Borbón
Head of government: José María Aznar López
Capital: Madrid
Population: 39.9 million
Official languages: Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician
Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes
2001 treaty signatures/ratifications: Optional Protocol to the UN Women's Convention
The armed Basque group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), Basque Homeland and Freedom, continued its campaign of bombings and shootings. A new extradition agreement with France allowed for the temporary return to Spain for trial of ETA suspects serving custodial sentences in France. There were numerous allegations that Civil Guards or police officers tortured detainees held incommunicado, and also reports about ill-treatment by prison guards. Known or convicted former torturers were pardoned and even honoured. North African children were expelled and effectively abandoned on the Moroccan border. Allegations were received about ill-treatment in police custody; immigrants and foreign nationals were among those who said they were victims. There were also allegations of police brutality during a demonstration in Barcelona, which was reportedly infiltrated by police officers, and claims of police brutality during a student demonstration in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
ETA killings
Fifteen people, including eight civilians, were killed by ETA. The continuing campaign of killings by ETA met with an intensified response at political, police and judicial levels. An agreement, signed in Perpignan, France, in October between the governments of France and Spain, allowed for the temporary extradition of ETA suspects serving sentences in France so that they could also be tried for crimes committed on Spanish territory. In December the French government agreed to a four-month handover of ETA member José Javier Arizkuren Ruiz ("Kantauri") so that he could be put on trial by the National Court on charges which included attempted regicide. Several judicial proceedings were continuing against members of Basque nationalist groups with alleged links with ETA. There were concerns that in some cases the authorities had interpreted a commitment to the concept of Basque sovereignty as support for, or membership of, ETA.
- Santiago Oleaga, financial director of the newspaper Diario Vasco, was shot dead in San Sebastián, Guipúzcoa, in May and José María Lidón, a judge of the Court of Vizcaya, was shot dead in Getxo, Vizcaya, in November. Many other people were injured.
There were allegations that ETA suspects were being tortured by Civil Guards or police officers while being held incommunicado under "anti-terrorist" legislation. Reports described sexual assault, beatings, particularly on the head, the placing of plastic bags over the head, blindfolding, sleep deprivation and practices inducing physical exhaustion, such as being forced to stand for hours in certain positions. In July a delegation of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment carried out its seventh visit to Spain. Its main purpose was to examine the efficacy in practice of the formal legal safeguards against ill-treatment available to detainees. The delegation interviewed a number of people who had recently been detained by the National Police or Civil Guard and who alleged that they had been tortured.
- Iratxe Sorzabal Diez, who worked for a Basque prisoner support group, Gestoras pro Amnistía, had been expelled from France to Spain in 1999, after being imprisoned in France. She was arrested in Hernani, Guipúzcoa, in March on suspicion of belonging to an armed group and involvement in a series of killings, and taken to the Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid. After arrest she was held incommunicado for the full five days permitted by law. She alleged that she was beaten during the journey to Madrid and that she was also subjected to electric shocks. After arriving in Madrid, she was beaten by six or seven officers and was thereafter repeatedly beaten around the head with hands, a telephone directory or a rolled-up magazine. She reportedly had a plastic bag placed over her head; another plastic bag was pushed into her mouth as far as her throat while her nose was covered, causing her to vomit. She was forced to undress, stand in the middle of a circle of officers and to repeatedly bend up and down or raise and lower her arms while being beaten. She alleged that she was touched on her breast, buttocks and genital area, threatened with rape and made to kneel on all fours on a blanket and punched. She was seen daily by a doctor, but the use of foam rubber or blankets during her ill-treatment had prevented any visible markings from the beatings. On 31 March she was taken to San Carlos Hospital in Madrid for medical tests on the orders of the forensic doctor attached to the National Court. A complaint was lodged with the National Court. She was released in September, reportedly because of lack of evidence against her.
- Unai Romano was arrested by Civil Guards in Vitoria-Gasteiz in September and subsequently transferred to Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid. He alleged that he was subjected to torture, including electric shocks to the testicles and ear lobes. The day after his arrest he was taken to Carlos III Hospital after apparent attempts at self-mutilation while he was in a cell, and his face and head had reportedly begun to swell to such an extent that he could not see. A complaint was lodged with an investigating judge at Vitoria. Unai Romano was subsequently imprisoned at Soto del Real in Madrid, where he reportedly began to recover his vision.
Eleven National Police officers and three Civil Guards who had been convicted of torture were included in a mass award of pardons to mark the millennium. Shortly afterwards a posthumous medal, intended to honour victims of politically motivated violence, was awarded to Melitón Manzanas, the victim of an ETA attack in August 1968. Melitón Manzanas had been responsible for the torture of hundreds of Basques during the rule of General Franco.
There were concerns that the granting of pardons and honours, the lax enforcement of sentences, poor standards of forensic medical reporting and the perpetuation of incommunicado detention, all contributed to a climate of impunity. There was also concern that the continuing failure to prosecute a number of those responsible for crimes waged by the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups, during the 1980s' "dirty war" against ETA was sending torturers a similar message.
Segundo Marey appeal
In March the Constitutional Court rejected an appeal made by 11 of the 12 people who were convicted by the Supreme Court in 1998 for the abduction and illegal detention of French businessman Segundo Marey – part of the "dirty war". Among the 11 were former Minister of the Interior José Barrionuevo and former Secretary of State for Security Rafael Vera. The Constitutional Court's decision meant that the prison sentences of the two officials were definitively reduced to three years and four months. However, on 30 May they, and three other high-ranking officials of the Ministry of the Interior, were allowed to leave prison after only nine hours and are not expected to serve any further prison term.
Alleged ill-treatment and forcible expulsion of children
There was continued concern that the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla were renewing, or seeking to renew, the practice of expelling Moroccan children to Morocco for "family regroupment". There was a series of expulsions of unaccompanied children who had residence permits, had been living in Melilla for several years and were attending school. Some children were expelled repeatedly. None had reportedly received legal assistance before or at the time of their expulsion and none had found families waiting for them at the border. In December a nine-year-old child, Karim Bouitali, was reportedly among other children taken from reception centres in Melilla and, without the benefit of legal assistance, escorted to the frontier by armed police officers. He was later seen alone, clinging to the border fence, weeping, numbed with cold and drenched with rain. Many children who returned to Melilla alleged they had been beaten by Moroccan police at Beni Enzar police station before being thrown onto the street.
There were also earlier allegations that one child had been "slapped around hard" by Spanish police officers and that another had been punched in the eye while handcuffed. In 1998, after three Ceuta police officers filed a judicial complaint claiming serious irregularities in the detention of Moroccan children by the local police, as well as alleging physical ill-treatment, the Attorney General ordered that such expulsions be stopped. However, the three officers' complaint was still languishing in the courts, while they themselves became the target of legal proceedings and were subjected to a continuing campaign of harassment and vilification.
In July AI reminded the Spanish authorities of their obligations under the UN Children's Convention and urged them to examine the case of each child thoroughly before any decision was taken to remove that child from Spain. It also urged the government to ensure that courageous police officers and others who sought to defend human rights were not subjected to harassment and persecution by colleagues or government administrations.
Alleged ill-treatment of foreign nationals
There were several allegations of ill-treatment in police custody, including of foreign nationals.
- Abdelhak Archani, a Moroccan national living in Badalona, Catalonia, reported that in July he had been abducted and beaten by three plainclothes police officers. He alleged that, after seeking to lodge a complaint about the theft of a passport, he was forced into a car and taken onto the hard shoulder of a motorway, where he was beaten with truncheons and subjected to racist abuse. He was then abandoned on the motorway. He was subsequently treated for his injuries at the Hospital de L'Esperit Sant at Santa Coloma de Gramenet. Abdelhak Archani's allegations were denied by the officers, who reportedly stated that they had found him drunk in the street and had simply taken him home. Judicial and internal police inquiries were under way at the end of the year.
In July a large number of different associations and trade unions filed a complaint with the High Court of Catalonia, stating that police officers used excessive and indiscriminate violence during an anti-globalization demonstration of between 20,000 and 50,000 people in Barcelona in June, held to protest against the policies of the World Bank. There were allegations that, towards the end of a demonstration that had been peaceful, police officers stood by while a small group of about 50 to 100 hooded people, unattached to the main body of the demonstration, attacked shops, banks and telephone cabins. Shortly after a small, unidentified group of people started to argue with the demonstrators, there was a police charge. Over 20 people were arrested, mainly by plainclothes officers, and over 30 people were injured. Some arrests were carried out by plainclothes officers who reportedly wore handkerchiefs portraying the Catalan independence flag and carried extendable truncheons, plastic handcuffs, baseball bats or iron bars. A number of witnesses reported that undercover police officers had themselves carried out some of the acts of violence. The Ministry of the Interior reportedly admitted that about 100 police officers had infiltrated the demonstration but denied that they had been involved in violence. In July a Barcelona judge exonerated those arrested of a charge of public disorder. Preliminary inquiries were continuing into other charges in a number of cases. In November a number of students alleged that they had been the victims of excessive force by police officers during a demonstration in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. A judicial inquiry was opened into the allegations, made by a students' union.
Update: António Fonseca
In March the judge investigating the death in custody in Arrecife, Lanzarote, in May 2000 of Guinea-Bissau national António Fonseca, closed the case, reportedly concluding that his death could not be attributed to a third party. No charges were brought against the National Police officers who had arrested him, taken him to the police station and allegedly severely beaten him. The judge reportedly rejected as incomplete the findings of a forensic expert, who had conducted a second autopsy on the body and had concluded unequivocally that he had been fatally injured by a "blow with a blunt instrument" to the right side of the neck. The judge also rejected the testimony of an alleged eyewitness as unreliable. The judge's decision left open a number of questions relating to numerous contradictions in the testimony. An appeal against the judge's decision was filed by António Fonseca's family but has not so far been granted.
AI country reports/visits
Report
- Concerns in Europe, January-June 2001: Spain (AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001)
An AI delegate visited Spain in May to gather information.
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