Strangely the municipal police, instead of investigating properly and persecuting whoever threw the pot, decided to blame this on the squatter movement. First they decided that the apartment in question was "related" somehow to the squatter movement, something these deny, then they changed the story of the potted plant for a stone, finally they accused this girl, Patricia Heras, of throwing not the stone but a mobile fence in the course of the confusing struggle.
She always denied it. She denied being there at all, she claimed to be a politically motivated scapegoat.
She also denounced, like most others arrested in this confusing episode of likely political revenge, tortures while in detention.
She was sentenced to three years of prison. Being a free spirit, she could not put up with it and she killed herself before going to jail again.
There are many ways to kill:
they can stab you,
they can take your bread,
they can not cure your illness,
they can push you to suicide...
(Bertolt Brecht)
Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].
Correction: the original fight happened in a massive party in a squatted building where some 1500 people were attending. The arrested seem to have been randomly repressed among passers by, people getting out from the party and visitors at a hospital.
Importantly, the original police report that attributed the injuries of the agent to a potted plant has mysteriously vanished.
Source: Mariana Huidobro's open letter at Sare Antifaxista (Mariana is the mother of one of the scapegoats).
The builiding in question is a nobleman's palace from the 18th century, located at the Sant Pere més baix street of Barcelona. His owners were the Marquises of Puertonuevo, a title granted in 1746 by the king Philip V of Bourbon to Josep Alòs i Rius, Chancellor of the Court (Spanish Audiencia) of Barcelona, an institution created by the "Nueva Planta" decree (1716) which abolished most of Catalonia's laws and institutions.
ReplyDeleteSince the 2006 incidents, the City Council has expropriated the palace and restored it to lodge a public facility. But an anonymous hand has written on the door a "4-F" memorial grafitti.