NORTH OF IRELAND:
Background >>
Video / Audio >>
BASQUE COUNTRY:
News >>
Video / Audio >>
Archive >>
"Hautsitako Leihoa - the broken window"
an ordinary day in the Basque Country February 4, 2008 | Cristina Maristany, Writer (in GARA,February 2, 2008)
Recently, I saw a very interesting documentary. It was produced already five years ago, but was now shown for the
first time. More than ever up to date. The film is called «Hautsitako Leihoa» (broken window), its directors are
Eñaut Toulouse and Hammudi al-Rahmoun and it's produced by ESCAC (School of Cinema de Catalunya).
The film tells the story of an ordinary day in the Basque Country. Congratulations to the producers from Escándalo
for their courage. The film is wonderful and necessary.
Subversion of the very Basis of the Law: the Presumption of Innocence
Through the stories of several jung lads arrested because of «kale borroka» (street violence) and the words of the
then judge of the Provincial Court of Madrid, Joaquin Navarro Stephen, we are entering the terrible and
concealed reality of the Basque Country. Navarro says that in this country North American criminal law is applied,
which is characterized by the theory of the broken window: take rigorous punishment measures against the
responsible person, because if you don't punish him as tough as possible he will end up murdering someone.
Therefore Joaquin Navarro speaks of the different interpretations of a deed, dependent on whether it was committed
within the Basque Country or outside. He gives an example: if a boy in Almería throws a firecracker against a
cash machine, punishment will be minimal. Probably a simple fine. But if the same thing happens in the Basque
Country, the deed will become immediately a terrorist act and the penalty is years in prison.
A devastating analysis on the situation of justice continues and shows the subversion of the very basis of the law:
the presumption of innocence. Because the antiterrorist policy is the presumption of guilt.
If someone has to prove his innocence, stresses Navarro, then there is no law.
We are faced with an anti-terrorist policy where everything is possible to get maximum efficiency:
five days in the hands of the police, detained «incommunicado» (without any contact to the outer world),
without the presence of any lawyers - not even court-appointed - when the statements are signed.
But later they are considered as evidence in a trial, as if there had been police affidavits, a trial that
sometimes fails to be ever held, the case abandoned after the detainee spent months and months in jail,
the policy of dispersal of prisoners to all prisons of the state as a flagrant violation of human
rights, which punishes the perpetrator and the family, who are forced to travel thousands of miles,
and sometimes not even see their loved ones.
Only one possible Solution: Dialogue and Negotiation
Navarro concluded his analysis by saying that there is only one possible solution: dialogue and negotiation.
Everything is an eternal cycle that repeats itself over and over again. Torture has never ceased to exist
in the Spanish State, not during the long years of the Franco dictatorship nor later, during the decaffeinated
transitional governments of Adolfo Suarez, Felipe Gonzalez, Jose M ª Aznar and the current Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero. (transición - transition - is in Spain the name for power transfer of the
Franco dictatorship to "democracy". But there was not much of a democratic change, not within the civil service or
the police. The ideology of a Spanish state in the borders of Francos rule was written into the
constitution and is used to suppress independent movements in the Basque Country, in Catalonia or Galicia.)
Torture has never ceased to exist in the Spanish State
The case of Igor Portu, who was arrested alongside Mattin Sarasola, was leaked only because they have not been
able to hide the severity of his injuries which necessitated committal to an ICU (intensive care unit).
The Government considers the hours between arrest and hospital admission as normal, and ensures us
that the injuries are due to resistance during the arrest.
Minister Perez Rubalcaba rallies behind this assertion, without realizing that the misconduct gives the impression -
as noted in an article of Javier Ortiz - that "everything was done in accordance with anti-terrorist
legislation."
Joseba Arregi died through torture several days after his arrest in Madrid on 13 February 1981. I would like to
remind you of the facts of the then incidents.
We were organizing an anti-NATO rally in the Ateneo in Madrid, in which many people were involved. It was one of
the most important events of the newly created anti-NATO movement. The previous day Arregi was murdered, and when we
started, we read out a communiqué condemning his death. I remember that I was in charge of it and reading it out I
pointed to the brutality with which he was treated. When they noticed the statement the police intervened.
The photographs of the savagely tortured corpse were terrible and, of course, the general director of the police said
that the detainee never suffered abuse. Das war 1981. Later, under the PSOE government, they would descend to
deeds even more repugnant: GAL, State terrorism. ()
"Why we, the Democrats ..."
Year after year Amnesty International has been demanding to abolish the special treatments during interrogation,
detention and «incommunicado» detention. But in this country in which so frequently, almost on the brink
to orgasm, "why we, the democrats ..." , is heared, one isn't responsive.
And now we again commit an election fraud in the coming elections ... The judge Joaquin Navarro Esteban will not be
able to see the documentary «Hautsitako Leihoa». He died on 29 April 2007 in complete loneliness.
Original version:
Spanish language >>