- Incarnated “as a network with its own voice” and with the objective of recognizing and repairing tortured persons in a public, social and official way, the Network of Tortured Persons of the Basque Country will be established and presented on February 15. Over 700 people have been tortured and called upon to join all the tortured.
The constituent assembly will take place at 09:30 a.m. in the Kursaal of Donostia-San Sebastián, on 15 February. On more than one occasion they have repeated the message: they want every tortured person to come, “so that no one in Euskal Herria is excluded from this process”. Officially, that day the network will be presented.
Taking as a starting point the Network of Torturados de Navarra, the entire Basque Country announced in June 2024 the news: The launching of a giant auzolan as a starting point for the resumption of torture in the Basque Country has so far brought together more than twenty people, including over 700 tortured.
“It’s time to recognize that systematic forms of torture have been used against this people,” they said. Society and generations to come “should be made clear what happened, because it is the most effective way to eradicate torture. So that no one will ever suffer what we suffer.”
In view of the persistence of the wounds of the tortured, they have stressed that special importance will be attached to mutual care: “We will have to create and build among ourselves what are the most effective mechanisms for mutual care,” to turn suffering into a “solidarity network” and “liberating force”.
“Since the darkest times of Franco, and almost to the present day, several police forces have made us suffer and systematically apply torture to thousands of Basque citizens in the context of the Basque conflict. A cruel and terrible method, which has been operating for over six decades under the shelter of an entire system. Thousands of cases, numbers, lives and experiences.” The network aims to give a voice to all of them.