Your name is linked to the cruellest instruments of repression: torture, imprisonment, exile, request for extradition... What weapons did Nekane have before all this for life, for life, for life?

As a child, I was very aware of the multiple oppressions I had experienced: as an identity, as a class, as a woman ... For example, when I asked for gifts, I didn't want dolls. I liked it, but because I was a girl, I didn't want to play that role. “I want to be like boys” was my attitude. At ikastola I didn't like having to choose anything: “or play with boys or girls.” These things have always given me a lot of rage.

When we went to the pediment and the elders said “Out of here, you are small!” was my attitude “no, I don’t admit it”. I don’t know if it’s natural to say, “No, I won’t let myself tread, nobody will tell me how I have to live and how I have to think.” My mother says it was a little girl.

My name is Nekane, but when I saw Maria Dolores on paper, I was furious at my mother. “Why?” “Because the fascists didn’t leave.” “But I want to change!” was a constant struggle. To throw myself in my day to day, it was my natural attitude, not to shut it down, to tell him how I felt.

I was also oppressed by the nationalism of the PNV, the Basques who needed eight surnames and I did not have them. My mother's father was an abandoned child on the street. They found him in Pamplona/Iruña and did not let him take the last name of the new family and they searched him in the snow, so they gave him the last name Snow. My last name is Nekane Txapartegi Snow. Therefore, for some it was Basque to Spanish, for María Dolores, and for the PNV it was not entirely Basque.

At Billabona's ikastola, I was experiencing class oppression very clearly and I was very angry. In my house, my father worked in the workshop, my mother was my patron. The difference was that if your father was employed at the bank, he would think it was more than us.

All oppressions were a continuum, I lived them deep inside and I was furious. At the ikastola, at level 8, we made the first protests, as they stopped those who were older than us. There were two options: to accept and live on your knees or to fight. He was very clear that he was going to beat me.

PIPI LANGSTRUMPH AND IBARRURI PAINS

He was elected councillor in Asteasu in the 1995 and 1999 elections. At the time when you were a councillor, the discussion of the armed struggle was held upside down.

She was a HB councillor at the age of 19, and they used to be full of great tension, very hard. Every time there was a death, they said to us, “You are responsible!”, pointing your finger. In that situation we had to go and demand that the rights of the presos.Yo be respected as a young man and as a woman wanted to bring our demand and our vision to the city hall, from the movements of the people to the institutions. But it wasn't easy to talk about national construction to those who worked in journalism, repression or feminism against young people...

While I was in jail, I was re-elected to another legislature. Then the illegalization was instituted and with it came political apartheid, the loss of institutions… the presence in public institutions was prioritized and everything was conditioned to this legality. I could not present any more, I continued on the lists and in popular movements as always, institutional work was not my field.

In 1999 he was arrested and tortured. What happened to his life?

Then another life began. This phase is not yet complete. Since I was in the police station, I bring a backpack, some times more full and others more empty. I've learned to live with that, I've tried to manage it. But something of mine stayed in the police station.

What was left in the police station?

I had been taken away from something that was mine, so intimate -- a part of my intimate being. Since then, I've been struggling to get it back. I've learned to live as if that hadn't happened, as if it had happened to someone else. But sometimes I realize that “no, no, that person is you.”

Indeed, my head and my body separated for a moment in the police station. What was happening was so frightening that her head went away and saw from the outside how they were heading to the young woman. It is a protection strategy. "Poor girl! ", he said, until I realized that that girl was me and then I became little.

Then I had to make an effort to assimilate what had happened, and I keep doing it. When I tell the story, I will try to tell it as if it had happened to another one, because otherwise I cannot tell it.

For me, recognition is necessary to close this experience. Confession will lead me to take my part, integrate myself, close myself and move forward.

It explains politically the torture that they did to you.

The Spanish State, and all the other repressive states, use torture as a political weapon to punish political dissent and ideas, and to create fear in our environment. Here's the message. “This happens to the one who fights.” At the police station they told me clearly, their desire is to deny our ideas and our struggle, to annul them, to repent ...

In my case, the hardest punishment was being a woman, because I didn't get into her macho mindset that I decided to fight. So to them, I had to be someone's girlfriend or the whore of the command. For having chosen to fight, for not having played the roles of their patriarchy, I had to be punished. My body was used as a battlefield until I collapsed. Political repression against women has a sexist face. I've seen and suffered this from police station to jail.

What decisions did you make after being tortured?

In police station, I had set out to go out alive. The torturers told me several times: “Do you know who Gurutze Iantzi was? Here he died, in Tres Cantos.” The more firewood I gave me, the more I threw myself. And the more I got, the stronger was torture.

If at any given time they had given me a pipe, I might have shot myself for ending that suffering. On the way to the police station in Madrid, I had a mock execution, and while I was torturing, on more than one occasion I thought that what I wanted was for the execution to have actually taken place, to avoid it. But then I thought, “No. No, and go on. I can't do this to my family. I can't stay here. You have to leave, girl.”

Torn apart, to jail. How to complete it?

In Soto del Real, I didn't have any psychological support. They didn't let me have trusted psychologists, and that can't be treated with a psychologist in a Spanish jail.

I was there nine months. I was in jail when I made the indictment. Not just for me, for Yantziga, and not for everyone. It was an obligation. And I saw that my therapy was to report it. But I needed a few months to do that, because I first had to internalize what I had been done. At first I struggled to put words to what I lived. It was a process until the word “rape” was pronounced. And I had to protect myself, because every time I made a story, I relieved everything.

It helped me a lot to know that others had lived the same thing. I found myself in jail with another political prisoner who had been tortured. The experiences I was telling me were quite similar. For example, guilt, for having spoken against you or your friends. At night, anxiety came and thought, “Maybe my name has also been said by someone.” I learned to forgive myself: “I couldn’t and it’s over. What could I do in that situation?” Just like the rape, "Joder, I couldn't stop!" -- the guilt was there. Then I thought, “You couldn’t.” It was good to learn that others had similar feelings.

When I left, I contacted the Anti-Torture Group. I was offered therapy, and I told them it was about denouncing my therapy, that I felt the need to do it. I started making my complaint public, and every time I did it, it went up a step. “I’ve been able to say it, not just for me, but for everyone else.” Every time someone was arrested, I felt the need to do something. “Now what I’ve had is going to happen,” he said to me, “and what? Will I be silent, doing nothing?” That's why I worked at the TAT, my anti-torture therapy was and continues to fight torture. Say out loud what's going on, but do something at the same time. I need it.

What victories have you experienced in the fight against torture?

When I was tortured I was young, I saw motherhood far away, but the hardest thing for me was that message. “We will rape you, we will do everything, you will not be a mother, we will not let you make another bitch son like you...” When I came out, I asked myself: “Will I be able?” When I got pregnant, I felt a victory, a big step: “I have been able.”

The other victory I felt when I denounced torture in the National High Court. In the courtroom that protects torture, in the heart of the torture apparatus, I got up and say what happened to me, looking in the eyes of the torturers -- it was hard, but I didn't feel as small as in the police station. “I have experienced torture and I am here, I am able to look at you.” This gives the force to continue the complaints. Even though we know they're going to cut us off the road -- it goes on. I have not learned to resign myself.

In 1999, I was tortured, and then for the first time in 2006 I was able to tell what they did to me, in macro-judgment 18/98. Until then my testimony had been written in all courts and it was not going forward. It would be a scandal if, six years after raping a woman, the judge did not allow her to speak. But we know that torture is a strategy of the state to keep it. And yet, I had that opportunity, many others have not. I felt I had to do it, not just for myself, but for all the women who have been tortured like me.

Has he later opened the door for his statement at the National Hearing?

I think yes, it has opened the doors. When they started in Switzerland with the Free Nekane campaign, watching that video opened people's eyes. On the one hand, believing the story and on the other hand my attitude, because denouncing them publicly showed them a long and hard fight against torture.

I said 1999 for the first time publicly that I had been raped at police station and recounted and denounced at the National High Court. I was tortured from the first to report sexual torture. At that time, sexual torture began to be evidenced. I and the tortured in general, the left and society did not have the reading and cultivation of sexual torture. But this time, in the Free Nekane campaign, we put sexist torture in the middle.

In video 18/98 only my account appears, only my tortured condition, but in the end I would like to give the following message: “They did this to me, but here I am. I haven’t been taken away from ideas and I keep fighting.”

So I wasn't very conscious; now, of course, it was very cool.

You decided to flee before the sentence was passed. Why?

Because I knew that the decision was already taken and because I do not accept a political judgment given by the Fascist Heir Court, and on the other hand, because my judgment is based solely on the complaint I have made against myself under torture. Allowing them to stop would mean accepting and legitimizing torture and the National Hearing.

I feel like I was born to be free. I also thought, “If I have to be a mother, let me be free.” And so it did.

In clandestine/illegality, how does the fact of being a woman and mother influence?

A lot. It is usually men who are in hiding, and often have a woman by their side to perform care tasks or the legality of the child. All the responsibility for everyday life, normally, rests with women. In my case, I am the one in hiding and I am the only mother, without a partner. So it's all about me.

In my hand is another life and my goal is to meet your needs. I have tried, without fear or hatred, to give my daughter as normal as possible and to explain our particular life in the form of a story. I've always told him that our life is different, that it's the life of pirates. So I've acted, in balance between the heart and the head. I've tried to be strong to give it stability.

Being in hiding poses a risk to the mother. The child has some needs and the mother has to be public to attend them. With the child I can't be hidden at home, that child has to go to school, the doctor -- that was the key, how to manage those risks and fears to meet the child's needs. I couldn't explain my identity, where I came from and how I thought. But I've tried to do it as naturally as possible, not convey fear to my daughter and control fears and terrors. However, he noticed everything. I didn't need a word to feel the tension of my body. In these cases, looking directly into the eyes, what happens? he asked me.

Why Switzerland?

The easiest thing was to choose a European country to travel. I had heard it said that in Switzerland children’s rights were guaranteed, and I was looking for a country where my needs could be met.

FIFTH LANGUAGE LEARNED FROM EAR

From the outside there is this image of Switzerland as a guarantor of human rights ... With those who lived when he was arrested by Switzerland in response to his request for extradition in Spain, has that picture changed?

Yes, a lot. One is theory and the other is praxis. We have seen that in order to support the European Union or that construct, the states are mutually supportive. That is the action of the states: “You do not enter my sovereignty, I will not enter you, we each do what we want and disguise ourselves as a democracy.” When I was stopped, I came across this reality.

Although we had a lot of evidence to show that I was tortured and that the Spanish State’s ruling was absolutely political ... The Swiss Government was trying to deny everything: “It’s a friendly state, and if a friendly state asks us to give someone ...” and the last sentence was always: “Then, if the detainee so wishes, he can file a complaint with the international authorities.” They did not care about the violation of human rights in order to protect a friendly State and its economic and political interests. Despite the fact that Switzerland has signed the Convention against Torture, the most important thing was to safeguard its interests, protecting the torturers.

If Switzerland had recognised that I had been tortured, it would have said that within Europe there is a torturing state, so the image of democracy that they give to that chiringuite would have been broken. I experienced it when we went to the Brussels Parliament. Many parliamentarians told us: “We know it is tortured, but we cannot say that if this is not dropped.” They are prepared to let human rights be violated so that this building works.

But they did not expect such a solidarity to be generated in Switzerland, which put them in serious trouble, because they or their image were risking to cover something that the Spaniards had done. Swiss civil society stood next to the tortured, and I was believed. Also the media, all associations in defence of human rights -- and the Swiss Government was just sitting next to the torturing state. For a country that is considered neutral, it was not a nice image, nor was it for the government’s Social Democratic team. In our view, the cancellation of the request for extradition by the Spanish state was a consequence of this situation. With street pressure and what might later come from international courts, the Swiss pushed the Spanish State to seek a solution.

What was the second arrest?

The arrest in Switzerland brought me the retraumatization of torture. All the wounds were opened to me, and now he is compelled to take my daughter off. The first few days, when I was incommunicado at home, my daughter was used to torture me psychologically. For example, they wanted me to take DNA and I refused. They told me that if I didn't collaborate, they would take my daughter to the orphanage. They wanted to undress me, and I told them no, that she was a tortured, raped woman, and that for me she was a trauma. And they said the same thing to me, that if I didn't do it by my will, they would have to do strength and take my daughter off -- in that situation, I was put in jail, totally retraumatized.

The prison conditions I was given were like those of the first grade in the Spanish state: 23 hours in the cell, alone. I was torn apart again. The prison, which was in the centre of Zurich, is a pre-trial prison. The pre-trial detention regime is highly criticised, because there is no presumption of innocence, and you are punished more severely from the outset than the convicted person. The aim is to reduce the prisoner's detention to allow the prosecutor to accept the offence charged to him. That's the strategy they use with social prisoners. As I was a political prisoner, I was taken to those harsh conditions, with the intention of punishing my ideas.Se again I was dealing with an administrative prison and I could wait on the street: The Spanish State submitted a request for extradition and Switzerland examined the request. There was no need to punish me, I in the Swiss country had no crime. I was incarcerated for being a political prisoner and for crimes and political sentences. The Swiss Government therefore fully supports the strategy against Basque political prisoners.

I was locked up in the pre-trial prison security cell. I was less than 10 square meters, no hot water, no toilet shut (I had a curtain on the door)... as tortured it was a stress for me, a jailer who could enter at any time while in the bathroom. Torture was for me not to be able to leave the police station. And the noise: the steps of the jailers, opening the door to the “krak-krak” took me to the police station ... In addition, in order to seek asylum, I had to repeat the entire story of torture, knowing that the person before me did not want to believe me, because I was not going to be granted asylum. However, I wanted him to hear from my own lips the torture that I had suffered as I did at the National High Court, so that I would then not say that I did not know or that I did not count. I had to make the whole story, and after reviving the experiences of torture, I went back to jail, 23 hours closed.

He says it's a capitalist, patriarchal jail. Explain what these two words mean from your experiences in Swiss jail.

Completely. The message is clear: You're mine and I'll do whatever I want, exploit, sexualize, commodify, control... Prison, with a hierarchical and patriarchal structure, wants us to become women submissive to the demands of the capitalist system, who fulfill the roles of patriarchy and assume the words of capitalism, to continue to be sustained through our exploitation.

Jails are made for men. Women and other nonbinary genders are systematically discriminated against. Their specific needs are not taken into account and all activities are aimed at heterogeneous. Women prisoners are forced to live with their men's leftovers. We didn't have any personal modules in that jail. It was called a “special module” and we were present women, transsexuals and men with mental illness. That is to say, all those who are discriminated against by patriarchy, excluding them. There is no gynecologist service, when we are with the month or where to clean it, because in the cell there is no hot water and with two showers of 10 minutes a week is not enough. In addition, we have to fund the hygienic products and the compress or tanpax are worth more than the money we earn a day’s work. So many prisoners are forced to work, let it explode in order to buy these products.

For the first six months, I refused to collaborate with the system. But in a moment, I said: “How will I deal with this? I have to socialize, talk to other prisoners...”. The only option to get out of isolation is to work. To perform the work, the roles of patriarchy are reproduced and strengthened. There was no more work for women: sanding, cleaning... for me it was morally very hard, with everything that has fought politically and especially as a woman... but I had to prioritize and my priority was mental and physical health, because in confinement the body becomes very hard and the only possibility to alleviate retraumatization. I had to throw it somewhere, untie it, everything I had inside. I thought, “Here I’m also going to do my ideological work. I will try to raise the awareness of the other women a little.”

Which woman did you find in jail with?

Most of them were migrants, poor people, people who engage in prostitution and survival, who live in the same town or city as us but outside of us. If I were on the street, I wouldn't recognize them. For me, it was a penitentiary university: I worked my real feminism in jail.

Most of them were Latin American, some had residence papers but were in jail for selling drugs and their lives were ruined because they were deported. Switzerland punished the residents of the area more severely, as a crime was being committed against the people who gave them the role. Many others had been surprised at the airport with the drug: They are called “dead women”: they carry large amounts of drugs in exchange for little money, and they have never thought they could end up in jail. Theirs was a drama, they arrived because they needed that money, they ended up in jail without speaking their language, completely isolated. They lived a year or so, were deported and returned with debt, harmed by their relationship with their children...

The biggest contact I had with the two transgender people. They were Brazilians. I identified with them, because they punished us for gender identity, and each one charged us in their own way. The daily struggle against the binary and patriarchal system was constant. We talked a lot, "How does this situation look like to you as a transsexual? For me, as a woman...” We were trying to help each other, to be supportive.

What I said in prison is solidarity. I stood between the system and the prisoners to curb the harasses suffered by the prisoners. “I am not afraid of you, I am fighting for the same ideas that you have punished me and I know that we also have rights,” he said to the jailers, because in his vocabulary there is no word “rights”. Everything is “punishment”, “prohibition” and “privilege”. I also said to the other prisoners, “We too have rights. Do you want to read them? I will give you... “Do you want to report? I'll help you." Prisoners saw that I was not afraid and that I was facing jailers and other prisoners that was a protection. That’s why I was convicted on several occasions, taking off work or changing prison “because I was doing too much propaganda in defence of prisoners’ rights.” When I was moved from one prison to another, a letter was written to me by a former jail inmate, saying, “Nekane, since you’ve been in jail, it’s more prison.” I thought it was nice, but hard.

How do you fight the unpoliticized prisoners?

First of all, using simple terminology. Not theoretical, but practical and as an example. No pride. Close up. How will we make the revolution if I only speak and fight for myself or for people like me?

They asked me, “Why are you in prison?” and I am a political prisoner. I explained to them why they stopped me and what they intended with us the cárceles.Detr since there is a system... "What is the system?" They asked me. "What oppresses us." That prison is patriarchal. That's what the conversations were like. It's also about sexism, putting terminology to everyday oppression. Do you think it is good that we have to buy our tampons and that men pick up the razors or the foam for free to shave?”; “ah, no!”; “when I tell you that women are discriminated against, that’s what I tell you.” No one is silly, we all felt “why do jailers treat me like this?” and the speech helped. Little by little, in the courtyard, the other prisoners also began to use those words, “system”, “patriarchy”… look! I got something!” I felt.

When I showed them pictures of friends and of the broad movement of solidarity, they were amazed and told me “how many friends you have!” and I answered: “Yes, as my struggle is collective now I am collecting that solidarity...”

For me, the main basis was to make it clear among us that the prisoners should be solidary, to be one. We couldn't make any difference between us. With the Gypsies there was a tendency towards racism on the part of both prisoners and jailers. I tried to make no one be excluded. On these occasions, I debated and I didn't leave them.

And the other basis for me was that we couldn't play with the jailers, to be their friends, ruining other prisoners to get privileges. Cutting the tendency of the chibateo for a cigarette.

One prisoner told me: “This was not the case until now.” We formed a fairly united group, above all differences, language, class ... On my birthday I was able to buy a cake in jail and I told the jailers that I wanted to celebrate it without excluding anyone, everyone or anyone. They finally let us meet. We put him in the middle of the cake, other prisoners who tried to make a postcard in Euskera, gave me gifts ... I will not forget that birthday. We were trying to get out of that hard day to day, to live together sweet moments.

How is the defence of prisoners' rights from within the prison?

Turning prison into a space of struggle, giving continuity to the struggle on the street. Jailers were not used to confronting prisoners, let alone political prisoners, because I was the only one in Switzerland. Some feared others with respect, they stressed my political character. When the confrontation began, the jailers said “I do what I am sent from above…”. I saw that this confrontation did not bring me much, as they did nothing wrong in their opinion n.Por that I started writing complaints both to the institutions and to the street. I became dangerous to the penitentiary system, because I denounced working conditions, how they treated us, how they sexualized us and that had repercussions on the media...

The conditions we live in Switzerland’s prison were below the standards of the European Union. I sent the complaints to various Swiss groups and human rights associations. Not because he believed in his will, but so that they wouldn't say they didn't know it. There they had the information and I asked them to position me. I was surprised to see that they really knew nothing about the inhuman treatment in Swiss jails. Both human rights groups and society knew nothing about the news inside the wall or didn't want to know it. And they didn't know it because until then nobody had denounced it. They are afraid that it would affect them in their sentences if they denounced the other prisoners, and they did not have the political conscience or the support that I had. I, on the other hand, was already punished, condemned for my ideas. What else could they do?

These allegations resulted in the Amnesty International women ' s sector and these associations had to start moving the ass and the Swiss Government ' s National Torture Prevention Commission went to jail twice to verify my allegations. I saw the prison directors getting nervous. But it's also true that they have everything very well organized to support each other. I was trying, at least I couldn't be satisfied with his diary.

Your case would have opened the eyes of many Swiss to see what reality you lived in jail.

For society here, jail is a taboo. They think it's only those who have fractured it, or the migrants -- they don't have political conflicts here, they think they're safe, they're never going to touch it. Therefore, they are not interested in what situation they are in. “The system works, so why talk about it?” My aim was, on the one hand, to promote debate and, on the other hand, to show how they are oppressed in a country where human rights are claimed.

I used the art of taking out what I lived in jail. I became an instrument of struggle and managed to break the walls of isolation. I started writing poetry and text, drawing drawings -- and they used them for the Free Nekane campaign. People thanked him and at the same time troubled him, “we never thought this was happening here.”

What...? Did you relate to the beginning of the Free Nekane campaign from inside the jail?

It was already underway. I noticed that people wanted to hear what they were saying and react immediately. I told them from the beginning that they would fight not for me, but with me. That the prisoners wanted to be part of the fight on the street and be subject. So I gave them my ideas in writing and on the visits. He sent them the daily oppression with words and images to use in the initiatives that were made on the street.

How do you do that?

Write and write. It was clear that, even if my letters had been censored, they would not stop me.

And those writings weren't for the people you already knew ...

Oh, sister! Actually, nobody knew who Nekane was, I was Amaia on the street. But when I was incarcerated, those who knew me as a person did not suddenly change my mind for what the media said. Conversely: “That’s not the case,” they said. Until then, being very present in school and on the street, it helped me. My life on the street was like Tetris, one of my companies didn't know anything about each other, and so everyone met in the campaign.

On the other hand, solidarity started to organize quickly and Free Nekane was meeting in the campaign. Although the left and social movements were organized into small groups, they all came together and women* and the feminist movement were the engine, at my request. I suffered as a woman and suffered from the oppression that I was suffering, because I wanted to put myself in the middle. The answer to this request was satisfactory from the street, it was like throwing firewood into the fire.

The key was to fit the prison’s internal and external struggle well. For those outside it was important that I kept fighting inside, that I didn't despair. “If he continues, we leave him,” he felt. The inner struggle was feeding the outside and the inside and the inside.

How did the interior and exterior communicate?

By letter and above all, Lora radio was very important to me. Special programmes were being carried out and they were informed of the ongoing struggle in the street. They read the writings sent by me for the demonstrations or for other acts and so I learned that there were llegado.Adem you of political solidarity, it brought affective solidarity to the cold cell a.Todos on Tuesdays the possibility of receiving calls from Euskal Herria. It was the only opportunity I had to listen to Euskera. “Nekane is with you.” It was terrible for me. “I’m not alone and I hold on, it’s still,” he felt.

Subsequently, rockets were thrown in jail every Friday. It was of all the devils! I realized that there was a lot of solidarity and that I was on the political agenda, but when I went out into the street, I found an even stronger and broader campaign than I thought. Edonon Free Nekane sticker, banderola, painted…

When I was leaving, I was thinking about creating a radio program for the other prisoners, and that's what we're on. For me, radio was so important, that I want to give that instrument to the other prisoners, to fight the system.

We have heard you say that the left is very atomized in Switzerland. How did you get everybody to join the Free Nekane campaign?

The goal for everyone was very clear: not to extradite and liberate myself. The focus of the campaign was to make the issue of systematic torture visible. From the anarchists to the Social Democrats, everyone joined the objective, each with its instruments and forms of struggle. My campaign has been one of the few that has brought everyone together.

I said I wanted the engine of the campaign to be women, because of the patriarchal oppression that I had lived and was living as a woman, to denounce sexist torture ... In Switzerland feminism was strong, but this campaign reinforced and activated many people politically: they never attended demonstrations, especially young girls...

All the demonstrations and actions that were carried out went ahead of the prison for saludarme.Cartas, postcards... came endlessly from all over the country and also from the nations. As has been said, many movements joined the target, which led them to the network. I am sorry that the force that I have gathered on the street is dispersed. I say: “I am on the street but I am not free because prisons are still full.” Let's see if we can turn this connected network into a fight against prisons and torture.

Amnesty International, the World Organisation Against Torture, Augenauf and Humanrights, among others, were opposed to extradition because the extradition of the tortured person violates international law.

Yes, the social recognition obtained is great. We now have to fight and drive through that social recognition the achievement of political and legal recognition. That is what is missing.

Spain and Switzerland sought the formula to cancel your extradition request: The Supreme Court reduced your sentence by half, so you left Switzerland’s prison with the already honoured sentence. The Swiss left lived it as a victory. You?

At first, I was very angry that I had left no confession and walked out the back door in some way. Once again, the Swiss did not stand in the face of the torture of the Spanish state. After seventeen months in jail, with the request for asylum -- I wanted to leave otherwise.

But when I went outside, I realized that my freedom was an achievement of solidarity and struggle, that we forced them to a solution and that they legally disguised that solution. It is very important to oblige two states to seek a solution. The decision came two days after the lawyers filed the application at the National Court, something that is unusual...

When you were in Swiss jail, two UN members, precisely two of those who created the Istanbul protocol, were the ones who did it to you. And they recognized her truthfulness.

Many European countries have approved the Istanbul protocol, but do not respect it, the Spanish State is a clear example of this. This protocol would be the manual to be used to clarify cases of torture. The only option that torture has, to ensure or demonstrate that it has been tortured and to clarify any doubts a State may have about it. Will the torturers always deny what they have done and will the torturers prove it? The Istanbul protocol is for that. It was set up to set minimum standards in the face of Turkey’s mass repression, and to ensure that those minimums were accepted by all States. Switzerland has not accepted it and therefore does not use it. This is a totally political decision, which forces us to look the other way and not position ourselves in the face of allegations of torture.

When I got the protocol, I noticed that although it looks at the sequelae of sexist torture, it is not dealt with in a specific section. Those who created the protocol must be asked why they created these terms, why a sexist variable has not been introduced... I would like to reflect with other tortured women and to contribute something to the protocol.

The Istanbul protocol analyzes the psychic and physical sequelae and from there an investigation is carried out. So far no one has ever asked me the questions that the experts asked me when passing the protocol. A judge hasn't asked me how I felt when I picked up the electrodes. Or maybe the brands they had made in the body. "These guys know what they do, they know what torture is," I thought. They also asked me questions that until then had not occurred to me. I think it's an important tool, which everyone should admit.

Your case appears in the report on Torture drawn up by order of the Basque Government. Does it have value?

I have no doubt that the work done by the team of Paco Etxeberria has been very good. In addition, the presentation came when we were here denouncing the systematic torture that the Spanish state used against the Basques, which reinforced our denuncia.Pero with that, where? Why has the PNV mandated this to say that it complies with European requirements and that its police do not torture? That's what I worry about. Now what?

Should Basque society press the Basque Government to denounce the Spanish State for torture of the Basques?

I thought this report had been done for that. I wanted to believe that, once and for all, the Basque Government was forced to do that work, because the reality of torture can no longer be hidden. If he accepts the outcome of the Istanbul protocol and acknowledges these cases, it would be up to him, on the one hand, to deal with those complaints, whether we want him to be our representative or to establish the tools for us to proceed with those complaints. On the other hand, offering the necessary therapies or options in the path of our training. Providing us with tools that protect us until we get full recognition. Or how should we move forward by taking on economic and personal expenses? If my case is also in that report, do I have to pay Strasbourg the way of complaint? The Basque Government should face the payment of the fee. In addition, as an indictment, he filed a complaint with each of the tortured. For this purpose they have institutions such as the Ararteko, Emakunde, or the official institution that so wish. But what's missing is will. It has ordered that the report be drawn up and that, if the report approves it, it takes the steps necesarios.Si it wants, collectively or if it wants, we should push it individually and to that end. If not, we are always with the institution that legitimises torture and hypocrisy. Worse still, with a leader and a party who want to give false hopes and make a profit with torture as well.

What do you have to get on the subject of torture?

The social recognition obtained is great. We now have to fight and drive through that social recognition the achievement of collective, political and legal recognition. Only in this way can I close the wounds of torture. It should resume the judicial process from behind, as the complaint of torture it had put before it is closed, but it should try to reopen it with new elements: The Istanbul Protocol, other reports and decisions in Switzerland, the report of Paco Etxeberria and his working team, the report of the International Group against Torture on the case of Altsasu and on my own Alsasua, because he believes that torture has not been analysed ... The case would have to start again in Tolosa or Donostia, the Supreme Court, until it reaches the last instance of the Spanish State, where it would close the case, and then I will have the opportunity to go to the European courts.

Torture is not prescribed in European law, in the Spanish State.

CURRICULUM

These are two brothers and two sisters who are in the house. His father died in his youth, worked in the bar and spent his youth in militancy, in the fight for the rights of prisoners, in the world of Euskera and internationalism. In the 1995 and 1999 municipal elections, Asteasu was elected councillor of Herri Batasuna in the City Hall of Asteasu.

He was arrested and tortured on 9 March 1999. He served nine months in Soto del Real prison, where he was imprisoned by court order. He was tried in the framework of the 18/98 macro trial and was tried in October 2006 to testify to torture at the Spanish National Court. The man reported being raped by four civilian guards in the city centre. In December 2007, Judge Baltasar Garzón sentenced him to 11 years in prison for a crime of self-incrimination of torture, being the only evidence against him.

A few months ago, however, Txapartegi had fled Euskal Herria. Since 2009 he has resided in Zurich, Switzerland, where he has resided since last year.

In 2009, the Supreme Court lowered its sentence to 6 years and 9 months, understanding that the crime consisted of collaborating with the armed organization, not belonging to it. In 2015, the Council of Ministers filed a request for extradition and on 6 April 2016 the Swiss Government imprisoned her.

The Free Nekane campaign was launched by several left-wing organizations in Switzerland and gained a great deal of strength. Extradition was rejected by Amnesty International, the World Organisation Against Torture, Augenauf, Terre des Femmes and Human Rights Watch. Two UN experts drew up the Istanbul protocol and gave full credibility to the allegations of torture by Txapartegi, which was arrested yesterday.

On 15 September 2017 he was released, as the Supreme Court lowered his sentence in February to 3 years and 6 months and declared it prescribed. To this end, the court used an article of the Penal Code that was renewed in 2015 and that allows for the reduction of the penalty for “less serious crimes”.

It shows the union that the Free Nekane campaign achieved in the leftist movements is that Txapartegi was the keynote speaker of the most massive May 1, 2018 event in Zurich. In Basque and German, he called for the freedom of all political prisoners in the world.