Eleven years after the dismissal, the last chapter of the Resistance of the Old Houses of Seville is closed. On 20 November 2018, the European Court of Human Rights endorsed Agustín Toranzo. He participated in this underground resistance. The Kingdom of Spain will have to pay EUR 8,225 for violating its freedom of expression.

The day after the eviction, at a press conference, Toranzo explained that in the dismissal of Casas Vieja the police had practised torture against him and his colleague Iban Díaz. The Spanish Government denounced him for insults and slander against the police and was convicted by a court in Seville. This was clear about what had happened and it has given a judicial battle until Strasbourg has finally given it the right. Although the judges have focused on the issue of freedom of expression, the judgment demonstrates, albeit indirectly, the existence of torture. If there were no torture, Toranzo would have been punished for slander. Toranzo states that, in general, the Seville court also acknowledged that “they did everything we denounced”. But the court decided to punish Toranzo.

“How can you recognize that everything you did to us is true and yet punish for slander?” asks Agustín Toranzo himself. From the other side of the phone, the entrepreneur himself is clear: According to the legislation of the Spanish State, there must be humiliation or a confession that identifies intermediate mistreatment as torture. Therefore, the same type of action may or may not be torture, depending on the purpose of the police.

This is the way the Spanish State acts, and it is precisely on which entrepreneurs had doubts to prepare the resistance of the social center. They were incorporated three years before the date of dismissal. “The aim was to repeat what happened in the eviction of the gaztetxe Euskal Jai de Iruñea,” he says. The aim was to extend eviction for several days “until the operation becomes too expensive economically and repressively.” Toranzo explained that in Itoiz and England in the 1990s they took as a model the resistances used against highways, airports and the construction of large infrastructures that built theirs.

Severe resistance

At the time of the arrival of the Police, six people were chained inside. Two of them were in a four-meter vertically deep tunnel and four others in perpendicular length. An armored door opened at the end of the room. In the quartite, light, water, food, oxygen, ventilation ducts, hidden chambers and two people's chaining tubes were adapted. The documentary London is not Seville, which can be easily found on the net, told firsthand what remained during those days.

Díaz and Toranzo remained chained 36 hours. The first believed that the police would resort to violence to bring them out; the second, to well-prepared technicians and professionals. Unfortunately, the first was the one who got it right.

When the police chief came down to them he clearly told them that “the lands of London and Seville are very different” and that, as the land of England authorised a technical rescue, the land of Seville is unstable and cannot be made such a rescue. Hence the title “London is not Seville”. Toranzo reminds him well: “What I really meant is that the police here wouldn’t use any technical rescue tool to get us out, but torture.”

With the concrete, the wrists were joined to the chains that were in two tubes well attached to the wall, with carabiners used in the climbing. As soon as they arrived, the police tied Toranzo and Diaz with strings and threw them out of their hands. The recordings of the hidden cameras can hear the cries of the two activists at the time. Toranzo says that was one of the hardest moments. “They almost broke his wrist, he couldn’t move.” For many hours with the damaged wrist, Diaz would not have been able to release his hand through the tube.

The Andalusian activist recalls that the police operation was prolonged and that the excavator was standing on the street and more and more people were meeting in the protests. Among other things, they were told that they would use the gas and inflame the proceedings against them. They were taken out of water, food and oxygen bombs. However, the two remained immobile, four meters underground. The head of the police came to plead with him to get rid of it. “I don’t get into my head how you have been able to do this. Surely there is no way to get your little manite out of there and out of this tunnel?” he asked. No, the only condition was that the eviction was stopped and that the excavator was returned.

Toranzo and Díaz repeated them over and over again that it was not possible to liberate them like this, that they were chained and that the only solution was to liberate the rescue teams from the firefighters. In the next few hours, long negotiations were held with the police, the fire brigade and the company’s mediators. Beatriz Moreno, a member of the area, and Diego Cañamero, a trade unionist and Andalusian politician of the SAT, were present at the event. The documentary shows the discomfort generated by the situation of the two members abroad, as well as the broad support they received. But since the police were not prepared to stop the eviction, the negotiations had no satisfactory results. Protests against eviction were intensifying, dozens of protesters cut off the city’s main avenues, and television stations in the Spanish state were making the case known. Finally, the Police decided to root out the resistance, which had not been made to wait.

Torture against occupation

Two agents entered the tunnel disguised in suits of the company Emasesa, which manages the waters of Seville, and with the approval of the fire brigades. When they realized there were hidden cameras, they shut them down. One hand was tied to the wall, and the other hands were tied with strings, again on the wrists, cutting off the blood circulation. As they were lying down, they tied the wrist to each other's ankles with the seal, keeping it in an uncomfortable position. As reported later by the activists, they kept them for about 45 minutes. This situation can cause severe pain and ischemia: gangrenade of a part of the body due to lack of blood. After two attempts, and with the fear that they could not release the carabiner in the event of loss of hand mobility tied to the wall, the two activists ended up freeing themselves from the tube, ending the resistance. The eviction began on a Thursday morning and, between applause and tears, they left the Saturday night of the building where Toranzo and Díaz were located.

As already mentioned, they denounced having been tortured, and then came the complaint against them and the insults and false information from the right-wing media, to the point of publishing that they “maintained contacts with ETA”. In the end, Strasbourg was right to them and it has become clear that the lands of London and Seville may be different, but above all, that the behaviour of the police in both cities has nothing to do with them. Strasbourg has stated that, by saying that there is no crime, Toranzo and Díaz were tortured and chained. Also with the cooperation of the courts and the government of Spain.

More information:

Documentary London is not Seville