Saturday, May 21, 2011

The arrested in Madrid denounce police abuse (full communication)

The original communication can be found at La Haine[es]. Follows my translation (trying to be faithful to the original):

With this communication we want to show how the Spanish police treated us and that the people knows which is the attitude of those people, blinded by power.

We want to write these lines to express how we feel about what happened.

We are very different kinds of people: some of us describe ourselves as Anarchists, others as Altermundists, Feminists, Ecologists, people that support a real democracy, etc. But we all lived and suffered in our flesh the disproportionate and unjust police abuse. 

Beginning with the fact that not all of us were in the demonstration and that those who were may defend different forms of political action, we all share a common feeling: the discontent with the current situation of our lives (the difficulty to find a job or the precarious conditions, not to be able to achieve our dreams because of the economical inequality and because of all this education based on consume and consume, repressed for our political ideas or because of wanting to be different to our surroundings). We find ourselves before a panorama without hope and without a future that incites us to live quietly and allow each of us to do what we like to do. That is why most of us went to the demonstration of May 15 in order to attempt to change this system for something more just and egalitarian. But which was our experience? REPRESSION by the security forces of the state.

It was something shameful to watch how some exalted men, dressed and equipped with all kind of weaponry to scare an beat the hell out of anything that moved or any person who looked differently to the fashions dictated by the markets, to see how the police, who is supposedly there to order and social peace, beat with impunity all those within their reach, with their faces full of hatred and the pupils dilated (by the stimulants that they might have consumed), that terror that they use to defend the bankers, politicians, big businessmen. 

The arrested ones agreed in the disproportionate and random way of action of police, because of the following points:
  1. To a comrade, after getting him arrested, once in the van and with his hands tied, they grabbed his head and hit it against the seat while lecturing him on how having his hair dressed in the Rastafarian style is anti-hygienic and that they could not care less that he had done nothing, that he was a pig and that was enough reason for them to beat him. When that finished, another policeman told him not to whine so much that only one had beaten him after all.
  2. Another comrade, for wearing baggy pants, got lectured as follows: "normal that you don't find a job with those gay trousers", among other homophobic and sexist comments.
  3. Yet another comrade, who was walking home after the demo had finished, along with his girlfriend, watched how police was beating the hell out of a boy. He asked them to stop that beating and go beaten himself for meddling where he had not been called.
  4. Two other comrades, when watching how riot police beat the hell out of people sitting in the Gran Vía, intervened to raise the kids from the ground and to prevent these people from being stepped on their bodies, being then arrested by policemen in skinhead garments, who only identify themselves as police agents after the arrests. 
  5. Another comrade was so unlucky as to attempt to take the bus at Sol when returning from a football match. He was arrested for being at the wrong time and in the wrong place, as he was told later on in front of the rest of us laughing at him, mocking him after discovering he carried all the football clothes in his bag. Then they told him: don't whine so much, now you have something to tell your grandsons.
  6. Most comrades had never been arrested before and when asking when they could make their call, they were told: you watch to many Yankee movies, here in Spain you have no right to call.
  7. In the Provincial Information Brigade station, located at Moratalaz, we could not raise the sight from the ground because when that happened we were yelled at or beaten. It was like the movies of terrorists: they wore all sky masks and the would not allow us to look them at their faces, not even when asked. But sadly reality beats fiction. 
  8. Thrown on the ground, with the bridles pressed on our ankles and looking downwards, another comrade said he had heart problems, that he had been operated and that he must take medication. He asked to be taken to hospital to what the policemen replied mocking him and denying him medical assistance. Two hours passed until an officer decided to call an ambulance, which arrived yet an hour later. The situation seemed to feel funny to the policemen, who invented a mocking name for him, made jokes and hurting comments. Finally he was moved to hospital where he was attended and provided medicines. However the policemen did not allow him to have them with him at his cell and told him to ask for them whenever he needed them. Then the shift changed and the new agents were not informed of the problem, and when he had to take a new dose, they denied it to him. The comrade then suffered a panic crisis and finally the accepted his demand only after two hours of all prisoners yelling about it. 
  9. As many of the comrades were frightened and initially we did not want our parents to be informed or go to the physician. After the initial shock we asked these rights and an officer said textually: Bunch of faggots, shitty little girls, I'm going to kick your asses so hard that it's going to get out by your mouth, first you don't want us to call your mama and five minutes later you do, but what the hell do you think this is, bunch of assholes? Fuck off!
  10. In transportations we are driven in the cars recklessly, at very high speeds, steering or pushing the breaks suddenly intentionally, so, we being handcuffed behind, would hit the doors and the separation panel. 
  11. Other examples of psychological abuses were:
    1. A comrade was told: You were lucky I did not shot you twice
    2. While carrying them upstairs they said: We could throw them down the window, because they are just fucking reds.
    3. They rejected to provide hygienic resources for a comrade who was menstruating. 
    4. They altered our time consciousness and our sleeping cycles.
    5. They mocked continuously the condition of vegans of some of us: look that's the vegetarian. Normal with that bitter face you have. Of course, they rejected to respect such condition. They claimed that food was scarce saying: so you get sexy for the summer.
After all those mistreatments and abuses, we were accused of: Public disorder, punished from 6 months to three years of prison. Assault against authority, punished with 1 to 3 years of prison. Resistance. The first accusation is shared by all, then the rest vary between two and three accusations. 

These are the testimonies of the adult ones, being other five minors arrested, who were taken to the GRUME (Special Group of Minors) and whose testimony we do not know, to whom we want to express our solidarity. 

This was the treatment we got. Not forgetting that we were kept thrown against the ground or looking against the wall, with the bridles or the handcuffs tightened to the maximum, for 2 or 3 hours. 

With this communication we want to show how the Spanish National Police treated us and that the population knows which is the attitude of these people, blinded by the power we have given them. 

We encourage all the people to keep taking part in all these mobiliztaions, or however they believe best, to demonstrate them that we are not afraid and that we are tired of their lies and thievings. 

If you fight, you can lose. If you don't fight, you have lost. 

The street is ours and our lives as well. We do not believe their lies anymore. Changes are done in the streets and not just in the ballot box. They do not represent us. No, no, no, they do not represent us!

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