Automatically translated from Basque, translation may contain errors. More information here. Elhuyarren itzultzaile automatikoaren logoa

I remember them.


27 November 2024

In 2006, Baltasar Garzón, then star judge, suffered a kind of revelation and drafted a practice that guaranteed the rights of those detained for terrorism. The same judge saw hundreds of incommunicado detainees pass through his room, many with obvious signs of ill-treatment, but did nothing.

Moreover, the Garzón protocol was not put into practice: the interrogations were not videotaped, the families were not informed about the whereabouts of the detainees and if the judges were ever informed of an incidence in the detention, this information never meant a change in incommunication.

Only in some courtrooms of the National Court was a qualified doctor allowed to have the detainee undergo a medical examination, but accompanied by a court medical examiner. That's why some doctors from the Jaiki Hadi association are dedicated to it.

There has been no willingness to declare police abuses by the National Police. The people who prescribed, cared for, legitimized and executed the torture remain in the state ratio.

I remember inextricably the sadness I felt when I left those sinister detention centers, the deep sense of helplessness and sadness. As I went through those doors, I knew that I left inside people who had hit me. And unfortunately, we were able to give them very little help, because, in fact, the reports we had made were thrown into the court bin. Undoubtedly, the suffering of the victims of torture is a reflection of the absolute solitude in which they feel in the hands of these torturers who have no value as human beings, who are neither anybody nor anything.

Years later, in 2016, the Commission for the Assessment of Police Abuse set up in the Basque Parliament launched an inventory of victims. So I felt it, and I've ratified it now, that there has never been a willingness to acknowledge police abuses. Those who prescribed, protected, legitimized and executed the torture remain on the grounds of state, in their strategy of legitimizing their power. There is nothing else to do with last week’s statements.

A few weeks ago, the members of the committee warned that they were not going to continue the work because of lack of resources. The report has brought together 93 recognised people, and that concludes the investigation… Perhaps we have been creating an identity based on socially acceptable stories to avoid bad memories and bad decisions.

But I think some of us are not reflected in any story, or in any story. It seems that we did not exist, simply because they decided that at such a time it should be. And yet, I remember all the people I saw suffering the cruelty of torture, and as long as I live, at least in me, they will have a refuge from impunity.

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