The General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions in Spain has reported that inmates Olatz Lasagabaster and Patxi Uranga, who are in Aranjuez prison, will be transferred to Martutene prison upon medical discharge. Currently, the departure date was set for June 2021. For two years now, in 2018, they have served three-quarters of the jail. Both were to be released on parole under the current rules.

However, as has already been mentioned, the news released this Wednesday could drastically change the situation of these two citizens, as according to the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions they will implement Grade 3 and will be transferred to Martutene from Aranjuez prison.

In Usurbil they have confirmed NOAUA! The decision to move is like this. From the workplace that has been working for years in the people to defend the rights of prisoners and their families, they have added that "something else is how and when it will materialize". In Usurbil, Nahi dugu Bilgunea has warned that "in these conditions, by default, there is no modulus of mothers in Martutene".

Remember that Olatz Lasagabaster was in the module of Amen in the Valencian prison of Piccasent, since Xua was born. Today, she was born in summer with little Maddi, also in Aranjuez's prison.

Refusal of the video call request

The news has come after Olatz and Patxi were in Aranjuez's prison, where they were completely isolated. At the end of September, convened by Nahi dugu Bilgunea in Usurbil, they denounced the concentration that took place at the fronton of Usurbil for almost 8 months without seeing or embracing Xua, to which Olatz and Patxi separated at the beginning of the year. And not because they didn't want to, or because they didn't try to ask. Although COVID19 prevented them from making face-to-face visits, they were also denied telematically through video calls the possibility of contacting their daughter Xua, Olatz and Patxi. It's not appropriate. At the moment it is not sufficiently justified". That is the prison director's response to the one-month request for Patxi Uranga to communicate with his daughter.

Isolates

The only way to communicate with her daughter was interrupted by Olatz and Patxi, who live in a difficult situation inside the prison. They said so at the concentration at the end of September. "Due to a case of Covid19 in the module where Olatz is, he has so far been isolated and without any visits. Of the 44 Spanish prisons in which Basque political prisoners are held, 30 are suspended from face-to-face visits. Those in Lokutorio are also getting more difficult. Taking Xua to a visit to an announcer, that is to say, to visits made in glass cabinets in the middle, is unthinkable. For a child who has lived with her mother every day until the age of three, not being able to hug her mother or her father would produce great frustration. However, permission to make video calls is not appropriate. It's not justified enough."

The situation in which this family finds itself "when there is a solution" was considered incomprehensible. With two measures: on the one hand, to deactivate the removal and transfer prisoners to prisons in the Basque Country, and on the other hand, "activating the measures recommended by international agencies at the beginning of the pandemic; freedom for people who can access the third grades, sick prisoners and people over 65 because they are risk groups".

When the decision taken today by the penitentiary institutions materializes, Olatz, Patxi and small Maddi will approach their home after breaking this isolation.