Thursday, May 9, 2013

Basque Country: political-judiciary persecution against four picket members

Four youths of Bilbao are being asked 14 years of prison each for merely taking part in an informative picket in one of the general strikes of last year. The evidence: police says... police lies... and nothing else. 


However under the Spanish Penal Code the word of a policeman is "evidence", while civilian witnesses are not or at the very least weight a lot less. I know on my own flesh: I was years ago sentenced to a fine (which I rejected to pay, choosing to go to prison instead) with dozens of witnesses supporting my version (most of which were simply dismissed by the judge) and just a policeman supporting, quite incoherently, the accusation. 

Mine is not any isolated case: it is the daily bread over here and has been so for the last decades. 

These four young activists, Irantzu Yaldebere, Jon Telletxea, Urtzi Martínez and Aitor Fernández, are being persecuted for their overall socio-political activism in their neighborhoods. 

As the solidarity manifesto says:
It is obvious that what is being punished are not disorders or aggressions but the struggle for and compromise with a different socio-political model. As the struggle of ample popular sectors grows, so does repression. 

In similar circumstances are also activists from Iruñea-Pamplona and Gernika. 


Source: Borroka Garaia Da![es/eu]

See also: solidarity platform at Facebook and Twitter.

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