DENUNCIATION

AGAINST VERONIKA NELSON AND GILLIAN FLEMING (INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT OF A.I.) TO KNOW AND TO HAVE IGNORED GRAVES VULNERACIONES OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CATALAN PRISONS (SPAIN)

The down signatory one, civil employee of the Generalitat de Catalunya and member of the Associació Catalan Democràtica of Funcionaris de Presons (ADECAF), want to put in knowledge of the disciplinary devices of the organization arrives referenced the following ones:

FACTS

1. - EXISTENCE OF A DENUNCIATION ON SERIOUS FACTS TO WHICH THE SECRETARYSHIP THE INTERNATIONAL OF LONDON HAS NOT GIVEN ANSWER.

In summer of 1998, ADECAF presented/displayed before Amnesty International Catalunya indeed a report in Catalan language titled Report ADECAF to Amnesty International. The subject of this report was the penitentiary sindicalismo more and in particular the union section of prisons of central USE or USOC (It united Union Worker of Catalunya). Throughout thirty pages it was argued and it proven by means of abundant documentation that this section of prisons was promoting in Catalonia an opposite policy to the rehabilitation of the inmates. In addition, tests relative to the implication of a high union leader in a case of bad treatments were enclosed later confirmed by the courts. We want to remember that the union USE, also done proven by means of document multitude contributed after the report, maintained Straits political contacts, personal and financial with the party in the power, Convergència i Unió (CiU), until the point of which the secretary of USE formation, Mr. Ignasi de Gispert, was brother of the minister of justice of the local government, the honorable Núria de Gispert.

In a telephone private conversation with Jordi Montaner i Maragall, president of AI Catalunya, this gentleman admitted that in Catalan jails “AI he has not done anything” from the crossings of competitions in 1985. This one is already an affirmation that would have to be resisted and to be explained, because it seems deserving of an investigation on the part of the competent disciplinary devices. In he himself sense, we can prove that in 1996 a member of ADECAF published an article in the AVUI newspaper where USE was denounced to the union Prisons by its opposite policy to the legality. And also we can prove that in 1997 the newspaper the COUNTRY published the hard article Hand with the prisoners, signed by Xavier Horcajo, where facts, without were denounced such Amnesty International Catalunya undertook no action to verify them. However, Mr. Montaner invested to time and money of the ONG in the editing of trípticos where the idle question of “fet was planned differential of Amnesty International Catalunya”. It agrees to add that the mentioned telephone call was our last contact with Mr. Montaner, who, without mediating explanation nor incident some, eluded from then all relation with ADECAF. Our distrust towards this ONG comes, therefore, of a laborious experience that the later events have not made but confirm.

Report ADECAF was ignored by Jordi Montaner i Maragall for more than six months, until, in December of 1998, we had “to threaten” to the people in charge of the fraud denouncing them before the Secretaryship the International of London if they did not give a reasoned answer to our denunciation. Immediately, the 28 of December of 1998, a volunteer of vocalía legal wrote up a letter that was sent to the chief of a main directorate of prisons, Mr. Ignasi Garci'a Clavel. In this letter the transfer to London of the denounced facts communicated and it was described like “serious” the content of the report. She is not understood, however, the delay of six months being ends that, at the same time, are described in so forceful terms.

As it wants that letter was leaked to press by our association in order to alleviate harassment labor that either then we suffered by our constant defense of human rights in jails Catalan (with journalistic denunciations to that either we have made reference), Amnesty International Catalunya hurried to deny to us, which caused interminable conflicts with the journalists. However, ADECAF at no moment affirmed that Amnesty had condemned the facts, our association was limited to give the letter to mass media with a press note in which it affirmed specifically that the report had been processed by ADECAF, but Amnesty, far from trying to contact with us to clarify the subject, acted by its account as if the initiative of a group of civil employees of prisons in the defense of the human rights did not deserve the minimum respect to him. An example: unlike the School of Lawyers of Barcelona, that in a letter showed its support to the task developed by ADECAF, Amnesty International never has showed its endorsement (something well different to emit a sentence against other organizations) to the task of volunteers that not only dedicate time, but that gamble its health and its work to make reality the ideario that Amnesty says to defend.

At the beginning of 1999, we sent to the Secretaryship the International of London an extended version of report ADECAF in Castilian language. In the spring of that same year, and although the USE leader Prisons processed outside finally the condemned by bad treatments, the Secretaryship the International of London, and in particular Mrs. Veronika Nelson, filed the performances without giving no explanation that based the resolution desestimatoria.

In February of 1999, and as a result of the denunciation of ADECAF, the section of USE prisons he was expelled from this union and he integrated himself in CATAC. Nevertheless, this change of abbreviations did not suppose a modification of its original corporativistas expositions. Thus, in December of 1999, as a result of the cease of the chief of a main directorate Ignasi Garci'a Clavel, the maximum leader of CATAC Prisons, Manuel Allué Shepherd, it threatened in writing the “informers” and said one by one that the union “would go to by them,”. The union bulletin where the threats are spilled and describes as “judas iscariote” to the civil employees that dare to denounce the practice of bad treatments on the part of their “companions” has legal deposit and it is distributed between all the group in the same interior of the penitentiary centers, with total self-confidence. To ours to understand, this simple fact, treating as it is the case of a majority union, prevents the fulfillment of the legality and makes possible that the bad treatments can be perpetrated with impunity. The penitentiary personnel, intimidated by the corporativismo and before the absolute passivity of the administration and of ONGs filled with progressives, does not dare to denounce the vulneraciones of the human rights. The benefit that the political class obtains from these corporativistas unions is to silence possible scandals in the social mass media that put the continuity of their positions at issue. Then, something so easy to understand as this assembly of lamentable circumstances escapes, apparently, to the intellectual capacities of the Secretaryship the International of London.

In September of 2000, CATAC Prisons put in practice their threats against the “informers” harassing a civil employee whom it had denounced to a union leader by bad treatments. In an offensive writing where it was accused to him of “inept”, three unions and forty civil employees requested their cease. The threatened civil employee came suffering harassment labor from year 1993, but the administration had not made anything to prevent it. As a result of this episode, in October of 2000 ADECAF the Report processed on the union instigación of bad treatments to the inmates and it sent to Amnesty International to it. In January of 2001, Gillian Fleming, of the Secretaryship the International, sent a letter to ADECAF reopening a case that went back to the year 1999 and that, according to its own words, “had extended too much time”.

The ADECAF denunciation received as of 2001 the support of diverse organizations, that is to say, the Observatory of the Human rights of the University of Barcelona, the training center Christianity and Justice, the School of Lawyers of Barcelona and the Catholic University of Comillas. Nevertheless, these endorsement served little as good. In summer of 2002, Amnesty published in its annual report the history of a civil employee presumably submissive harassment, but some did not give by proven the facts nor emitted sentence, avoiding at any moment to speak of the denounced union and a generalized situation of corporative threat against the personnel of prisons. As a result of it, the corporativismo could continue acting its wide ones and impunity in the vulneraciones of the human rights of the inmates and the Catalan civil employees of prisons did not modify nor a millimeter. In this sense, which can affirm that the only management of Amnesty in relation to the facts denounced by ADECAF has been pronounced absolutely ineffective, would have to make reflect to the people in charge of this ONG.

In 2002, other organizations, in addition to ADECAF, they denounced the situation that is lived in the Catalan prisons in analogous terms to the exposed ones by our association. It agrees not to forget that ADECAF had made circulate their report, filled with probatory documents, and this decisive fact forced to give an answer all those that say to be it jeopardize in Catalonia with the defense of the legality. To all except a Amnesty, clear. Thus, at the end of 2002, Justice i Pau, prestigious Catalan ONG, processed and published the report the prisoner to Catalunya. Diagnòstic of situació present, where express reference to the sindicalismo like person in charge becomes of the hardening in the conditions of life of the prisoners. Nor a single mention of the civil employees submissive harassment in spite of being they it source of the information, but at least a recognition of the truth of the facts denounced by ADECAF. Also, Cristianisme i Justice published in January of 2003 the Què report passa to Catalan them presons? where it is mentioned specifically to promotional CATAC as of a penitentiary policy of hand lasts and to ADECAF like main denouncer of political happiness. Nevertheless, Amnesty International does not have sufficient and follows without making reference some to the corporative sindicalismo. The Secretaryship the International demands “medical reports”. On the contrary, there is nothing no to condemn. Lamentably, this attitude will cause that, in the years to come, the medical reports (of civil employees and inmates) begin to occupy the place of union bulletins as object of our denunciation.

At the beginning of 2003, public becomes who Manuel Allué Shepherd, the maximum leader of CATAC, is implied in a new case of bad treatments. This fact adds to the sentence in firm sentence of another union leader of USE Prisons that the courts blamed of injuries with superiority abuse. Allué, on the other hand, already had been processed and acquitted in another case of bad treatments by which it was only object of an administrative sanction. In this occasion, the implied ones are four civil employees, all of them affiliated with union CATAC. However, although our association puts the facts in knowledge of the Secretaryship the International, remembering to him that the policy of the union could in time have avoided this new case condemning, authentic root of badly, Amnesty are not bothered in answering. In the middle of the 2003, the section of CATAC prisons is expelled from its own union under the accusation of corporativismo and Integra this time in the UGT. CATAC considers that the practices of their section of prisons are incompatible with the respect to the human rights, and thus shows it publicly, but the “progressives” of the UGT do not do affiliated disgusts to him to 800. These facts, whose probatory value seems to us unquestionable, it does not seem to affect either to the ladies Veronika Nelson and Gillian Fleming, investigators of the case. At this point, and before the amazing evidence, the Secretaryship the International seems to have adopted the resolution to ignore the facts in order not to have to blush of shame.

The 17 of October of 2003, the Observatory of the Human rights of the University of Barcelona publishes the Condicions report of l' empresonament to Catalunya, where it is mentioned specifically, confirming it in its integrity, report ADECAF. Not only that, throughout the text of four hundred pages makes extensive reference to union CATAC like promoter of opposite policies to the penitentiary legality. In this point, the position of the Secretaryship the International of London, that knew from year 1999 the facts denounced by the University of Barcelona, passes of the disrepute and the shame to the founded suspicion of serious irregularities on the operation of the organization.

From the cease of Garci'a Clavel, the indications of punitivista regression on the part of the Generalitat de Catalunya, under the auspices of “honorable” the Núria de Gispert and with the total support of the unions of jailers, were evident with the simple reading of the daily press. For example, in summer of 2002 a riot in the jail of Quatre Camins took place. According to testimonies of the prisoners, who at this point seem more than credible, the riot was instigado by the corporativistas sectors of the monitoring personnel, which hoped to justify, from a spectacular event of these characteristics, the radical turn in the penitentiary policy towards the “hand lasts”, turn that indeed took place with the creation of special departments and the abandonment of all favorable sensitivity to the rehabilitation of the inmates, always in benefit of the corporativistas attitudes. The present denunciations by tortures are the outcome of a death long announced (with real deaths and suicides of internal) in which the paper of Amnesty International has not been other that to refuse to respond, from pride del that it does not want to lower of his pedestal and to recognize his error, the repeated demands of aid on the part of ADECAF. By all it, and of way totally founded, ADECAF it has initiated a campaign of denunciation against Amnesty International, that will continue while we do not obtain a reasoned answer that justifies the silence of this ONG.


2. - PROVEN VERACITY OF THE ADECAF DENUNCIATION.

The exposed facts over and over again demonstrate that to the report presented/displayed in summer of 1998 and the later extensions and new information, in special the Report on the union instigación of bad treatments to the inmates in the Catalan prisons (2000), not only totally were founded with regard to the characterization of the majority union of prisons like incompatible organization with the penitentiary legality, but also in which it concerns the forecasts and possible effects that, watching towards the future, the increasing influence of this union could have in the Catalan prisons.

Thus, after describing to the USE practices Prisons and their slow but effective work of indoctrination, in his report of 1998 ADECAF it made the following prognosis: “Finalment, considerem that, tot plegat i amb you devise i to them maneres of fer característiques d'USO Prisons, aquestes circumstàncies, habituals to them nostres presons, is prune veure potenciades in extensió i profunditat, fins make specific-in cases of you torture or maltractaments” 1.

And in the report of 1999, extended Castilian version of the previous one: “To ours to understand, the punitivista doctrine can generate or be already generating between the civil employees of prisons an ideological consensus that would allow to conceal, at the time of writing up the disciplinary reports, possible violations of the human rights that, practiced only by a minority of the safekeeping personnel, would turn to all the group in accomplice of such abuses, imposing a “law of the silence” after which a black number of bad treatments indetectable by the judicial authorities would hide. In effect, the situation described by document 31 seems excellent in this aspect in the measurement in which he was a civil employee of prisons who broke the “law of the silence” that can be protecting to the hard minority of hand. The disastrous consequences in the labor plane which, for the civil employees who fulfill with to have, they derive from such denunciations, are only possible if a punitivista ideology reigns that punishes to the “colaboracionistas” creating around them a “moral emptiness” in which all the “companions” participate and turns the life of these civil employees thus estigmatizados an authentic hell (...) So that that security of group is spontaneous and automatic, is necessary a linguistic datum point, a series of slogans, ideas, beliefs and feelings (connotations) common. However, only one majority union organization who has certain infrastructure, can arrive with her writings, combining the labor vindications with the punitivistas messages, to all the corners of a certain scope of the penitentiary administration. She is in this point where the symbolic space that turns potential victims not only to the totality of the internal ones, but to the own civil employees can be generated” (op. cit., págs. 22-23). These affirmations did our association two years before knowing the case the civil employee submissive harassment labor after of having denounced to a union leader by bad treatments. It does not have to be strange, therefore, that being made the reading of the information processed by ADECAF, a neutral and nonconditional person politically as she were the author of the first document of Amnesty on these facts, affirmed the following thing: “The information facilitated by these civil employees of prisons it is come off that for years a serious behavior has been existing that tolerates the violation of the human rights” (Amnesty International, Letter to the Chief of a main directorate of Penitentiary Institutions of Catalunya, 28-12-98). It seems evident to us that the signer of this letter perceived with clarity which the diffusion of certain ideologies in the penitentiary centers could suppose in damage of the human rights of the inmates. A simple analysis of the electoral results in the Catalan prisons allows to collate the correlation between the development of the corporative union (33% of the votes in 1995, 42% in 2002, 66% after its fusion with the UGT in 2003), the hardening of the penitentiary policy and the increase of the denunciations by bad treatments, the suicides, the flights and the riots.

However, if as much the information of other organizations as the evolution of the Catalan prisons has confirmed in their totality (and, lamentably, fulfilling the forecasts most pessimistic) the content of the denunciation of ADECAF, described in their day of serious by Amnesty, so that it does not condemn the Secretaryship the International? What prevents him to emit an official notice of six lines being criticized the performances of this union? The omission of his to have to arrive at a motivated uprising represents, to ours to understand, a flagrant vulneración of the mandate of Amnesty. Our association, in fulfillment of its own mandate like organization of defense of the human rights, must have to put in knowledge of the public opinion what flagrant irregularities with result of several presumed cases of bad treatments consider. Vulneraciones of the human rights that, in addition, can be multiplied in the future until still more scandalous ends, because it is to hope that the growth of the corporativista union will continue until winning the 100% of the affiliation of the personnel of prisons in Catalonia.

3. - INCORRECT PERFORMANCES OF MEMBERS OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL IN RELATION TO THE ADECAF DENUNCIATION.

From the previous proven facts, and of which they are described next, the following reprobables performances on the part of some members of Amnesty International can be derived.

The Secretaryship the International of London institutionally is forced, by the own mandate of Amnesty, to give an answer reasoned and founded to the denunciations on bad treatments that receive on the part of civil employees of prisons in the performance of their positions, especially when this organization describes to have to denounce bad treatments like an obligation enrolled in the code of conduct for civil employees in charge to enforce the law. The ladies Veronika Nelson and Gillian Fleming have omitted this obligation and have turned pure irrisión the calls of Amnesty to the police bodies and civil employees of prisons to commit themselves personally in the defense of the human rights.

Before the abundant documentation, endorsement and information of other organizations that confirm the facts denounced by ADECAF, as well as the fulfillment of its forecasts on the consequences of not condemning the development of the union corporativismo in the Catalan prisons, the Secretaryship the International of London has harmed the most sacred mandate of this ONG, and is morally responsible for the presumed cases of tortures and bad treatments that have been denounced after their knowledge of the facts.

Amnesty International Catalunya has never fulfilled its obligations of control and control of the Catalan prisons, destining resources of this ONG to performances of Catalan nationalistic propaganda, omitting his to have to investigate denunciations appeared in mass media, hiding during six months the denunciation that ADECAF presented/displayed in 1998 (and which, now, with the perspective of the years and the outbreak of the number of the cases of denunciations by tortures, it shows to what extent it responded to the reality).

Some members of Amnesty International Catalunya have been distinguished by their work “to entertain” to ADECAF with always failed to fulfill promises. , At the end of 2002, and after Amnesty made a management (the only one) in relation to a labor case of harassment against a civil employee, thus requesting explanations to the Generalitat de Catalunya, Mrs. Flori Estevez committed itself to transmit to ADECAF the answer of the Catalan government and to emit a sentence if this answer were not satisfactory. These facts had to appear published in the Annual Report of year 2003, but the awaited event never took place. Amnesty either did not make never arrive at ADECAF the answer of the administration and finally, through its officious spokesman, Mr. Fernando Bermejo, has communicated to our association that has been made already all the possible one in this case, totally absurd asseveration because it is as much as to say that AI cannot be pronounced nor be emitted sentences on any case (in which it occupies to us here not even has been pronounced).

The 2 of June of 2003, and convinced or by the evidence of which Amnesty did not give any importance to proven facts or that, I repeat, in its day were described as “serious”, a member of ADECAF sent to Flori Estevez a letter in which protested, after four years of delay, an answer in writing to the report presented/displayed in 1999 and to its successive extensions. The 8 of August of 2003 was sent to all the delegations of Amnesty International an email where the facts were related and the following request became: “The present is not only one denounces against Amnesty International before its own delegations, is, first of all, a request so that they demand to the central seat that breaks his silence and it is pronounced of form reasoned before the 30 of September of 2003. On the contrary, ADECAF will act consequently and denounce to AI before mass media”. The 13 of August of 2003 Nelson inquired to Veronika into which Mr. Manuel Allué Shepherd was involved in a new case of bad treatments and that we considered person in charge to this organization of the drama that was being lived in the Catalan prisons. In addition, we noticed since if to us were continued ignoring “we will denounce to you before the United Nations and mass media worldwide”. However, according to the officious spokesman of Amnesty International, Mr. Bermejo, ADECAF it cannot “give terms” and “threaten” Amnesty. Nevertheless, this affirmation seems to us that she is lacking of foundation. We must remember Mr. to him Bermejo and, therefore, to all the staff of Amnesty, that this ONG asks explanations the governments and who, in case of being unsatisfactory or, simply, null, the answers of the controlled administrations, the AI claims are translated in public sentences before mass media. ADECAF does not understand so that reason a ONG cannot be put under he himself formal procedure and so that the request of explanations under pain of public sentence is described as “threat”. It agrees to need, in addition, that the fact to give terms is a normal management and logical that is used in nobody it transacts administrative, commercial or of any other nature. These are the literal words of Mr. Bermejo: “in spite of to have lamentably discredited with their devoid accusations of foundation, ADECAF gives ultimatums, it makes threats (mail of ADECAF of August directed to AI is seen) and accuses the “bases” of AI of naivete (...)”. Really, Amnesty demands for himself same impunity that criticizes the administrations. However, not even the great power of the totalitarian governments submissive control by AI would respond in the injuriosos terms that Mr. Bermejo has used against the members of ADECAF: “If what the members of ADECAF want it is to relieve its resentment against the world or its bitterness, they would have to look for a medical doctor's office”. These terms, absolutely condemnable, are made knowing full well that some of our partners are of medical statement of release from duty and aquejados of very serious diseases (like the cancer) after one decade of harassment labor in which, once every two years, received letters of the Secretaryship the International of London affirming that “I do not have time to read its denunciations”, “there are lost all the documentation in a transfer”, “it does not consist to us that no member of ADECAF has been jailed to defend the human rights” and others delicatessen similar. Therefore, we understand that, after five years of Angelica it hopes, ADECAF must right to demand an answer, to establish a reasonable term for its transmission and to notice that, case of being ignored the complaint, will denounce the facts publicly making use legitimate of its freedom of expression.

Amnesty, apparently, does not understand it thus. In such a way that, like retaliation by mentioned writings of ADECAF, Mrs. Flori Estévez it communicated in September of 2003 to this association that, as of that moment, desentendía of the denunciation and refused to transfer to Madrid and London the ADECAF information. At the beginning of October, members of our association made repeated calls to Esteban Beltrán, director of AI Spain, to put in their knowledge a formal complaint by the behavior of Mrs. Estévez. It was left in the answering machine, in repeated occasions, the ADECAF telephone, but the answer of Mr. Beltrán, throughout a month, was absolute silence, something that to us the situation of Joseph K. in the novel of Franz remembers Kafka the Castle. Finally, in a private meeting (12 of December of 2003), and after members of ADECAF appeared in an act witnessed by notary public of Amnesty to denounce that this ONG knew from 1999 and has not condemned the denounced facts the 17 of October of 2003 by the University of Barcelona, Mr. Fernando Bermejo it noticed to us (before witnesses) that Amnesty would ignore as of that moment the ADECAF denunciations and it would not condemn the facts denounced like answer to the mentioned performances of critic. To ours to understand, this threat of retaliation responds to the real attitude of Amnesty showed already by Mrs. Estévez, and represents, added to the done rest described, a very serious vulneración of the norm of Amnesty that affects all the organization, from the Secretaryship the International of London (that it has been de facto ignoring to ADECAF for years) to the gentlemen Beltrán, Bermejo and Mrs. Estévez.

By all it, the down signatory one

IT SOLICITS:

That course occurs to the present denunciation and that, in case of not observing, as we anticipate beforehand, deserving performances of reprobación on the part of the “companions”, is responded to the following questions: 1 Can the Secretaryship the International of London elude to give answer founded and reasoned to a denunciation on facts described as serious whose veracity has been proven ad nauseam? 2 Is certain that Amnesty International, after asking explanations a government, already has closed the catalogue of possible performances and that, therefore, this ONG cannot do nothing else in the case of the ADECAF denunciation? 3 Is enabled Amnesty International to emit sentences on proven facts that they suppose a vulneración of the human rights or it is limited to ask for information on such facts? 4 Can a position of Amnesty International, by own decision, to solve that no longer it will transact the denunciations that appear to him as a result of which it does not consider of its affability the attitude of the source? 5 When Amnesty does not condemn proven facts of serious nature, have other organizations the right to criticize it or is considered this decision a subject hostile act to retaliation as for example to ignore the denunciations that have presented/displayed or present from then this organization? 6 When Amnesty International affirms that the civil employees of prisons have the obligation to denounce the cases of bad treatments that know in the exercise of their position, and recommends the governments to demand to this group a personal commitment in the defense of the human rights and the transmission of the corresponding denunciations, means this that Amnesty has the obligation as well to protect these civil employees of the corporative retaliation or this obligation on the part of Amnesty simply does not exist? This question is very important and know that, if indeed, as it maintains to Fernando Bermejo, this pretension of ADECAF supposes “to mix churras with merinas and the bacon with the speed”, then will put the facts in knowledge of our companions and will give the reason to those who, thinking first of all about their health, the well-being of their families and their professional stability, has refused and they are continued denying to denounce cases of bad treatments of which they have knowledge in the end not to have to do itself put under the calvario of the harassment labor, all it before the indifference and until the offensive sarcasms of some members Amnesty International.

However, if in the reasonable term of a month receipt is not accused of the present denunciation and in the one of two months a founded answer does not occur that satisfies, point by point, all and each one of referenced facts, ADECAF, doing legitimate use of its freedom of expression and in defense of the human rights, continues ahead with its campaign of protest against this ONG.

Martorell (Barcelona), 28 of January of 2004

NOTE: Amnesty International never responded to this reasoned denunciation. Thus, after a year more of delay, ADECAF has decided to put the facts in knowledge of the public opinion.

copyright©adecaf 2004


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THE COUNTRY, 10 OF JUNE OF 2004
JUSTICE INVESTIGATES PRESUMED BEATINGS OF CIVIL EMPLOYEES TO 40 PRISONERS AFTER A RIOT

THE GOVERNMENT SENDS TO THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR AND TO THE JUDGE THE STORY OF EIGHT INMATES OF THE JAIL OF QUATRE CAMINS

PERE RIVERS. Barcelona. The Department of Justice of the Generalitat has opened an investigation to the past clarify the performance of the civil employees of the jail of Quatre Camnis after the riot of 30 of April as a result of that eight internal ones explained to have undergone serious bad treatments in the hours and the later days. These prisoners have been visited by a group of jurists in the jails and its story has been shaped in a document of 50 pages that the Generalitat has sent to the office of the public prosecutor and the Court of Instruction number 3 of Granollers, that investigates the riot and the denunciations of the prisoners.

The own Department of Justice has incorporated to its investigation commits that document and has announced that will take declaration to the inmates. The next week they will begin to explain the happened thing, in the presence of its lawyer and of an inspector of the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Services, to the front of which she is Albert Batlle.

The story of the supposed beatings undergone by the prisoners was spread yesterday by a group of associations of jurists shortly after which the Generalitat made public who opened that internal investigation. The official notice in which the version of the prisoners is detailed signs the Observatory of the Penal System of the University of Barcelona, the Catalan Association of Democratic Jurists, Justice i Pau, the commission of defense of the School of Lawyers of Barcelona and the Catalan Association for the Defense of the Human rights.

Until now eight prisoners have been interviewed, but today same other they will be visited two more by those jurists and in the next days it is probable that the relation is extended. Until Justice it has not put any impediment now so that those interviews are celebrated. The eight prisoners interviewed have agreed in explaining that two hours after the riot happened in the module 1 finalized, in which seriously the assistant director was hurt with a sting Manuel Tallón, were removed from the cells by the civil employees and underwent all type of blows. First in Quatre Camins and later when they arrived at the other jails.

The jurists assure that medical reports exist that guarantee the bad treatments and that also are documented the illegal regime of isolation which they suffered during several days during the 24 hours. It exists, in addition, an eyewitness of the supposed aggressions who will declare before the judge, and some of the civil employees already have been identified. The prisoners think that the objective of the aggression was to punish them by the injuries suffered by the assistant director and to obtain the names of the ringleaders of those argument

Miguel Pueyo, person in charge of UGT prisons, the majority union in the sector, in which the section of the Independent Candidacy of Workers of the Administration of Catalonia was integrated (CATAC), defended yesterday the “professionalism” of the civil employees and demanded the innocence presumption. On the other hand, CCOO announced last night that it supports the investigation of Justice, but needed that when finalizes it undertakes actions against which it has made “infundadas accusations” to destroy “the penitentiary system and to his workers”.

The associations of jurists are congratulated within the framework by the opening of the investigation because it reflects “an authentic will to clarify whatever has happened, of respectful a penitentiary policy with the fundamental rights”. In the same way, those jurists insist on whom they do not try “to globally accuse the group of workers to practice bad treatments, nor locating it under a generic suspicion”, but they request to them that they do not show corporative attitudes.

Justice has issued orders so that the 40 prisoners who supposedly were mistreated are transferred to other jails and he is allowed them to leave his cell at least one hour to the day.

NAKED IN THE VAN

The associations of jurists expose in an official notice spread yesterday who the internal ones were removed from the cells of Quatre Camins handcuffed with the hands in the back and “thrown by the stairs”. Later they crossed a long corridor that communicates module 1 with the one of income in the jail and in that passage the prisoners explain “to be struck with puñetazos, kicks, clubs and other elements”.

When arriving at the zone of income, according to his version, “they were undressed, struck again and thrown to the police vans” to transfer them to the jails of Ponent, Brians and the Model, “where again they were attacked”. The prisoners explain that to them he continued himself beating during several days, until they began to be visited, and that has undergone “many days” of isolation during the 24 hours, without being able to leave the cell.


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THE COUNTRY, 16 OF OCTOBER OF 2003

A REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY DENOUNCES TORTURES AND TERRIBLE CONDITIONS DE VIDA IN THE CATALAN JAILS



THE GENERALITAT DISQUALIFIES THE STUDY, DENIES THE ACCUSATIONS AND DEFENDS THE PRESENT SYSTEM

PERE RÍOS

Barcelona

The first report that has been made in Catalonia on the conditions of life in the jails draws a very shady panorama, with the existence of diverse cases of tortures and bad treatments, saturation of the prisons, lack of professionals and deterioration of the health of the inmates. The study, made by a group of professors of the University of Barcelona, also states discriminations towards the prisoners, degraded vulneraciones of fundamental rights, conditions of life and, in general, the failure of the resocializadora function of the prison.

The Department of Justice and Interior of the Generalitat disqualified yesterday the content of the study and denied that it is certain the reality that is described. Ramon Parés, director of prisons, affirmed that the authors “have very radical ideological expositions that nobody shares almost”. The study has been processed by the Observatory of the Penal System and the Human rights, integrated by jurists, psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists of the University of Barcelona (UB). The director Juan Tugores has prologado the report and assures that “he is an instrument of first order to know one the invisible aspects the Catalan society”.

The study occupies 300 pages and is structured in four chapters. Most emaciated it is third, in that 175 “problematic situations” for the prisoners are related. In one of the sections they are exposed, with names, last names and dates, four cases of tortures or bad treatments that at the moment the judges are investigating. “There are several cases more, but the prisoners and the lawyers refused to facilitate details and we have wanted to be prudent”, explained Iñaki Rivera, one of the authors of the study. The four cases that are related produced in the jail of Brians and they explain themselves, according to the authors of the study, by the extreme right-wing ideology of union CATAC, majority between the civil employees in the last selections and that the past month of July were integrated in block in the UGT

“He gives the sensation of which who governs the jails it is not the Generalitat, but the civil employees of prisons, that have been winning more and more to be able”, assured Creek. In its opinion, the situation has been had agravated from the march, for three years, of Ignasi Garci'a Clavel like director of prisons. His present successor, Ramon Parés, affirmed yesterday that then era “easier” to manage the prisons “because there were 2000 prisoners less and the Penal Code allowed .redemptions”.

In Catalonia there are at the moment 11 prisons, that gather a population of 7,300 prisoners. The study assures that they lack 2,700 seats and that that explains that there are cells until with five prisoners, as it happens in the Model. The Generalitat recognized this deficit yesterday, although it located it in 1.100 seats and it assured that it is working to solve the problem.

THOUSAND DEATHS IN ONE DECADE

The study remembers that between years 1990 and 1999 976 prisoners passed away in the Catalan jails, according to the parliamentary answers to questions made by the ERC deputy Joan Ridao (the COUNTRY of the 25 of June of 2000 is seen). Those numbers, which had mainly to AIDS, suppose an average of a passed away prisoner every 3.7 days. In both last years the average has been of a prisoner died per week.

The women and the immigrants are the groups of discriminated prisoners more. First they have his modules in “worse lands” of the jail and without the necessary facilities. The foreigners have many difficulties to obtain permissions because they do not have a well-known address. Other situations less visible exist than also it denounces the study. Catalonia, the only independent community that it has transferred the penitentiary competitions, is also the unique one in that a turn of appointed counsels for the prisoners does not exist.

The authors tried during months that the Generalitat let to them enter the jails, and even the PSC, ERC and ICV requested it in the Parlament, but the answer was negative. Of that parliamentary debate it is left the phrase of the deputy of CiU Jaume Camps, collection in the newspaper of sessions, sending “to do puñetas” to the professors of the study. In the end they have made the report, among other materials, with 120 surveys to prisoners.