Official report concludes that more than 4,000 people were tortured in the Basque Country

  • The University of the Basque Country's Criminology Institute and the Basque Government have published a report on cases of torture between 1960 and 2014. The report's directors –doctor in law Laura Pego and recognized court doctor Pako Etxeberria– have provided the information: during those years they found evidence of 4,113 cases of torture in the Basque Country.


2017ko abenduaren 20an - 18:15
(Photo: Basque Government)
Zarata mediatikoz beteriko garai nahasiotan, merkatu logiketatik urrun eta irakurleengandik gertu dagoen kazetaritza beharrezkoa dela uste baduzu, ARGIA bultzatzera animatu nahi zaitugu. Geroz eta gehiago gara, jarrai dezagun txikitik eragiten.

This is the first time that a public institution has admitted that the Spanish State has carried out torture and, furthermore, it has given statistics about torture carried out in police stations. The report provides information about cases from 1960 – under Franco's regime – and in the following 'transition' period.

Of the 4,113 cases included in the report, in 1,792 instances the Spanish Police were the torturers, in 1,785 cases the Civil Guard, and in 336 cases the Basque Police (Ertzaintza). In fact, ErNE, the Basque police trade union, has severely criticised the contents of the report, saying that it is based "only on reports about torture" and does not take legal judgements into account. Etxeberria and Pego, on the other hand, have stated that the report is 95% believable, and that 202 of the reports of torture carried out by that police force pass the UN expert examination protocol requirements.

Spain under examination

The report has been published after the European Court for Human Rights punished the Spanish State at least six times. Since 2010 the Strasbourg-based court has criticised Spain time and again for not examining cases of torture.

50 state employees have been punished since then for carrying out torture. The report deals with 30 sentences connected with the Spanish National Police and the Civil Guard. The Spanish Government has been pardoned in many of those cases.

Most of the people who reported torture were men, according to Etxeberria and Pego: 83% of cases. In around 5% of cases people who were tortured or mistreated also reported psychological damage and requested help to deal with it.

 

This article was translated by 11itzulpen; you can see the original in Basque here.


Kanal honetatik interesatuko zaizu: English
2023-01-18 | ARGIA
ARGIA: Worker-Owned Basque centenary Media
Independent journalism with solidarity-based subscription model

ARGIA is a news media funded in 1919 in Pamplona and published in Basque language. At first religious – called Zeruko Argia, "light of heaven” –, forbidden during the fascist dictatorship in Spain from 1936 on, in the 1950s and 1960s it had managed to come... [+]


2020-02-07 | Paul Iano
The future of the Basque economy: labor power or tech parasites

In this series of articles, it should now have become clear that venture capital has created a system in which two types of companies become global giants: companies with bad business models but good marketing, or good business models and horrible impacts on society. This... [+]


2020-01-29 | Paul Iano
The Coming Tech Economy
The creative destruction of peer to peer

One of the confusing aspects of the tech industry is that from a distance all the companies can seem the same. They use apps, have similar design styles, are based in hip urban centers, and strangely have millions of dollars without making any money. In part, this series is... [+]


2020-01-16 | Paul Iano
The reason Telepizza won't pay minimum wage: Undercover again

After publishing Glovolizacion, a three-month undercover investigation into the working conditions of Glovo riders, I received almost entirely positive feedback from the general public and riders alike. Most riders felt ignored and exploited, and most readers were interested in... [+]


2019-07-21 | Paul Iano
Who is Glovo?

This is the third in a four-part investigative series examining Glovo’s business model and its relationship with the world it operates. Based on public statements by Glovo’s founders, this article will contextualize their world-view and the changes they hope to... [+]


2019-07-11 | Paul Iano
Glovo and its Restaurants - Is It Good For Restaurants?

Almost all of the negative public attention that has recently been plaguing Glovo has been focused on the exploitation of their riders. This a welcome change of perspective but it also leaves out a significant part of the story: the restaurants that “collaborate”... [+]


2019-07-11 | Paul Iano
Glovo and its Riders - An Unbalanced Relationship

This is the first in a four-part series that will examine Glovo’s business model and its relationships with the world in which it operates. Based in extensive research into the company’s public image and dozens of interviews with Glovo “riders” in my... [+]


2019-07-01 | Paul Iano
What Happens When Guns Are Everywhere? Where Vox's ego will take us

If anyone is likely to have a gun at any time, society and daily life feel the consequences. Police shot first and ask questions later, and the possibility of being shot for absolutely no reason becomes a practical reality of going to work, going out with friends, and simply... [+]


2019-06-26 | Paul Iano
Hiding Profits in Fun: Amazon's Gamification of Work

In my Larrun article Glovalization, I attempted to call attention to the way that Glovo tries to pit its employees – oops, contract laborers – against each other in a zero-sum competion and a game-like application, and I predicted that this type of ingrained... [+]


2019-06-20 | Paul Iano
Glovo Kills: The True Price of a Pizza

Back when Glovo was a small company that no one had heard of in a few major Spanish cities, one of its first riders, Isaac Cuende, was hit by a car during a delivery. According to his account of the incident, the first question the company asked him was “are you carrying... [+]


2019-05-31 | Paul Iano
The double standard

Two major events have rocked the USA in recent weeks. First, the arrest in London of Julian Assange for allegedly helping Chelsea Manning in an effort to crack a government password . Second is the final, albeit redacted, Muller report, a long-awaited legal reckoning of... [+]


2019-05-30 | Paul Iano
Not my tragedy

The other day, standing in a bar looking at a photo of the Notre Dame cathedral in flames on the front page of the newspaper, I had to stop myself from laughing with joy. Unlike most, I see the cathedral as a monument to the many crimes of the Catholic Church: organized sexual... [+]


2019-05-03 | Paul Iano
Glovolization
The rise of Glovo and the decline of labor

Since its founding in 2015, Glovo has been expanding across the Iberian Peninsula and the world so quickly that we have not had the time to appropriately react and evaluate its impacts on our lives. The company uses a business model and marketing strategy that were first... [+]


2019-04-05 | ARGIA
Murder of environmentalist Gladys Del Estal: reward as punishment?

Environmentalist Gladys Del Estal was killed by a member of the Civil Guard at an anti-nuclear festival in 1979. The officer was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but shortly afterwards before serving his sentence he was awarded a medal. Del Estal has become a symbol of... [+]


Errigora: Navarrese asparagus to promote Basque

Errigora has started its annual campaign in favour of producing food and consuming it in the Basque Country under the slogan "Five years feeding what we love". Five years have gone by since they started the initiative. They use part of the profits which they make from... [+]


Eguneraketa berriak daude