The documentary starts with your father [Joxe Iriarte, Bikila]. What did your father tell you after seeing him? It has been a process for us. My
father never told us he was tortured, but he scored in the book he passed through the police station. He didn't consider himself tortured because he wasn't as tortured as Joxe Arrangi or Anparo. In Basque Country, many people do not consider themselves tortured because they have not received as much as others. Or because of the “strong hold!” in Euskal Herria by militancy, according to which some had internalized that torture was a toll to pass. My father first received the recognition granted by the Basque Institute of Criminology, and I believe that the documentary has also served to have social recognition.

The documentary also explains how tortured people find it hard to talk about it, even with very close people.

That's part of the mechanism. Torture is so violent and humiliation so harsh that torture cannot be shared with others because it is too painful. On the other hand, we have not made it easy either, that is, the Basque left, or all the movements that have fought here. Why? One of the main functions of torture is to destroy these nuclei. Therefore, directly or indirectly, the tortured have been told that “yes, denounce and tell in the press that you have been tortured, but it is over, do not open your heart, and please do not start to tell how you can’t sleep, how you can’t eat, how you’re depressed… Because if you count all that on the team, you could destroy the team, the new teammates won’t come..”

Militancy demands from the militants something very perverse: “hold firmly!”, maintain the myth of Itziar’s son. But of course, no one supports him, it's impossible, and then shame comes. Those who speak to the police for severe physical torture have that psychic, which the physicist can see. But he who speaks with psychological torture may then think “but I have not been done anything compared to them,” and often this is more bearable and then leaves more serious psychological damage. The system has everything designed to be tortured in the cell and then.

The documentary puts the emphasis on the investigation of torture. When I had the opportunity to attend the research papers courses, my worst nightmares came true. I knew the reality of torture, and yet I could not imagine what the report contained: what number we are talking about, what systematization has been done... Then I thought
that this changed the story of what happened, that it was going to be the beginning of something, and that two things could have happened: one, that measures were taken along the path of truth, justice and reparation, or that the streets were metaphorically called. Neither one happened.

Today I say that the Basque Government has 300 reasons for continuing this issue, those 300 cases of torture by the Ertzaintza that have been demonstrated in the report. Over time, I saw that this report would end up on a shelf at the Institute of Criminology, and I thought society had to know what the report brings in a simpler way.

What else have you found with this torture work? First there is a question of semiotics. As used in society, we understand torture as a hard attack, but it's not. Torture is a tool that states have historically had. However, following the Second World War, the Charter of Human Rights was drafted, which prevented the torture of States. The definition of torture clearly states that it must be caused by a public official or by a person exercising public office, because for torture to exist there must
be state protection. It is often said, for example, that “ETA tortured…” because no, that is a crime, but not torture, and if you have specific legislation to prosecute that crime. Torture is much more serious because it is done with all the mechanism and impunity of the State.

In the documentary, an attorney speaks openly about the torture mechanisms of the system: ideologist, planner, torturer -- it's not known in society. When we talk here about torture, they are
presented as isolated cases: Galindo, GAL... A policeman does not dare to torture at that level if he knows that he is going to be thrown into the street, that he is going to be punished... In addition, the responsibilities are blurred in that way: no one takes full responsibility for torture if everyone has a small part of the responsibility for cheese. If a tortured person complains of torture before the judge and the judge does not investigate, he is committing a crime! They are the links of torture, which are essential if it is to happen. Incommunication is a key instrument for torture, and if it is not definitively erased as an exceptional situation it means that the door to torture is not to be closed.

The 2016 CAPV torture reports and the current reports of Navarre are windows to hope because they reveal the truth. At the same time, in view of the events in the CAPV, they are also instruments of despair, on which no progress is made at the moment.

Yes, sometimes the doors open to hope and then comes resignation. It happens in different areas, in Euskal Herria we have gone through our sovereign movement and the Catalans with their struggle. But it is not true that they do not serve at all. We could not say that the Catalan struggle has served no purpose, as a national movement they are much stronger as a nation than ten years ago, although there may be less cohesion than three years ago. Managing expectations is a big problem, but the torturers tell me that the first need is not justice, their first responsibility is truth, and indeed almost reparation.

In Basque Country, very serious things have happened that should never happen. For example, the son of a person killed by ETA can always say “ETA killed my father”, and society can recognize that pain, even if it may not be in its ideological realm. In the future this helps heal the wound. This makes a story, and that child can believe that story, so his pain is legitimate.

Another part of society, on the other hand, will always be suspicious of the story. A person may say that his father was tortured, but he is not recognized, he is told to lie, and that does harm, causes collective trauma. In a peace process we must recognize all the pains, heal all the pains, not close the wounds because it will always be easier to return to the routes of violence. If we need a healthy society, recognition of torture is essential.

The Government, in a way, recognizes torture because it considers the reports to be true, but no further progress is made. It is often said that the Spanish Government is not making progress, and it is true, but he does not have the Government’s report. It is
a report made with its stamp and which houses its police, the Ertzaintza. The Government has its own health system and its resources, why do they not address the issue properly?

In Spain all these cases of torture are still totally rejected. Do you see it possible to open sliders for somewhere in the state? I do not believe that justice is done in Spain with torture. Spain has signed the Treaty of Rome, where it is said that if it has
been used against collective torture it is a crime against humanity. Suppose, as some say, that all the tortured were from ETA. According to the Treaty of Rome, this means that there is a crime against humanity by torture against a particular group. Those who have been in the Spanish Government for the last 40 years should therefore be judged, and I do not think that will happen. Even if a government wants to, it would be difficult for this to happen.

When I was looking for texts against torture, I came across a very powerful one, that of Thomas and Brave [Francisco, president of the Spanish Constitutional Court murdered by ETA in 1996], and so I said more or less: “Explosives, shooting in the head, kidnappings… the worst of them is torture because torture misses the torturer and the state itself.” ETA killed him a few weeks after his writing. Therefore, from the discursive point of view, with all that has happened here, it is not easy for a Madrilenian to create the thing of torture. But well, for that I've done the documentary, that's what a lot of people are working on, and I think the truth will gradually emerge. Please note that we are still talking about the truth of the War of 36.

You'd see Argentina, 1985 --
Yeah, I was out of sleep thinking, "This is what we need here."

...on a scene, assistant prosecutor Julio César Strassera, Luis Moreno Ocampo, tells him that they need testimonies, testimonies believed by his mother Pinochetzaleak. Are testimonies still needed here? I believe that we cannot always
be asking tortured people for their testimony of torture. This is enormous suffering for the tortured, many of them have told me how they were tortured when they tell, that the next week they do not sleep. One thing could be to count in a national trial the torture suffered, as in Argentina, and the other, four times a year, four media outlets. Before, when these investigations did not exist, media testimonies were needed. For example, we can never thank Eva Forest enough for her work, which was titanal.

That was necessary, but we are in another phase already, the Basque Institute of Criminology has brought these testimonies together in a very professional way, and now we have to fight for the recognition phase. Torture has no social recognition and then we quickly turn to a cruel story, to see if we can recognize it. Now we have to focus on other things, like numbers.

In his documentary he uses
a lot of infographic. Yes, I wanted to show what rigor that research has been and what the results are. If I tell him that 5,000 and peak have been tortured people -- it's a lot, but we don't know how to size. In interviews with some Catalans I have told you that it has been shown that in the city of Barcelona 100 people have been tortured every year in the last 50 years.

No authority appears in the documentary, no judge... has that part been excluded? Yes, I have highlighted the work done by the
Institute of Criminology, and a documentary of almost two hours has emerged. Not everything is possible. I wanted to tell the truth, it is now up to society to call on the authorities and so on to question the whole system that has maintained torture. We have 5,379 blue binders in Euskal Herria, 5,379 cases of torture, they'll be more, but we'll start recognizing them to later reach non-repetition. Now we are going to start issuing the documentary of people in town to empower the tortured people, because they must be the main drivers of this process, as is being done in Navarra. Torturers have to ask and society has to be behind.

(This interview is accompanied by the following report: The tortured ask that truth, recognition and reparation be maintained)