Relatives of three Basque prisoners have been left without a visit last weekend
- Relatives of Basque prisoners Santi Aragon and Txuma Altable, imprisoned in the jails of Logroño and Castellón, have been refused visits after their passage through these jails. According to the information disseminated by the ETXERAT association, the same has happened to another Basque political prisoner.
Over the past five days he has refused to visit relatives and friends of three Basque political prisoners, who have travelled hundreds of kilometres to reach prisons.
On 28 August, the father of the 84-year-old Basque political prisoner Santi Aragon was left without a visit to the prison in Logroño (280 km round trip), after the repetition of a situation that occurred months earlier. On the previous occasion a drug control dog “marked” the prisoner’s father and told him they should chain him. The father of Aragon did not prevent him from carrying out the catechism, but they forced him to undress himself completely and, although they gave him one, it was an insulting behavior, since his dignity and basic rights were not respected, nor the penitentiary legislation on the “integral katxeos”. The result of the catechism was negative.
This week the same situation was repeated, with the same dog and the same civil guard, as well as the request for a cache. "As he was not prepared to re-endure the insult situation and the nerves of the previous period, they refused to visit the father of the Basque political prisoner," said ETXERAT. Santi Aragón has been in prison for 18 years and the last 8 years in Logroño prison. "In all these years it has not given rise to any problems and has nothing to do with drugs to justify this disproportionate action," ETXERAT said in a statement released by Europe Press.
On the 24th, a relative of Txuma Altable, imprisoned in the prison of Castellón, with 1,100 km of round-trip journey, was rejected for not arriving in prison an hour before his visit (he arrived, as always, half an hour before his arrival). On the same day, the relatives of Imanol Miner (Granada Penitentiary Center, with a trip of 1,680 km.) They were the ones who were left without a visit, according to the officials, because one of them had no permission to enter.
The ETXERAT association has denounced the situations suffered by the family and friends of Basque political prisoners and prisoners. "Many times, especially when it comes to parents of prisoners, they are elderly people, with health or mobility problems, forced to make long trips and without the certainty that they will be able to visit them. In addition to keeping in force the harm caused to family members by the penitentiary policy, it can be easily increased by the arbitrariness and lack of certainty that occurs". Etxerat calls on Basque society "to participate in the mobilizations, with the aim of putting an end once and for all to the current prison policy and the suffering it generates".
Since we were transferred to Euskal Herria from the prisons of the Spanish State, in the prison of Zaballa we have found many deficiencies in the field of communication. We have fewer and shorter face-to-face contacts, we have had to make visits to the speaker in poor technical... [+]
