That Happened to Me. on Torture and Impunity
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Exhibition «The death threats just kept the urine was bright red. I was «The first greeting was a punch «The aftereffects are that I coming, and so did the threats continuously beaten on my rib- before I even got through the have two damaged ribs and my to take my mum to the General cage, my back and my buttocks, door. Then I saw my friend Josep right thumb is almost useless. I Directorate of Security. She was with wooden sticks, truncheons Fuentes naked from the waist up. also suffer from various issues the only member of my family they and metal bars wrapped in fabric. From his face it was clear that and problems with my nervous hadn’t arrested, because my sister They inflicted some terrible blows he’d been tortured […] One day, system, although some of these who was four months pregnant on my abdomen and would snuff it was terrible. Until it all came have lessened over time. What is had been detained on the morning out their cigarettes on my chest to an end. The Civil Governor of really frightening is that all that of the 17th, and my dad on the and arms. They gave me electric Barcelona turned up, Sánchez happened half a year after the evening of the same day, to make shocks. Another form of torture Terán (who later claimed he’s dictator died…» them tell them where I lived, which was the bath: they’d grab me by been a democrat his whole life) José Antonio Vidal Castaño they didn’t even know. My dad, the hair and push my head under and instead of shaking my hand, aged 51, was beaten and punched until I felt I was drowning [...] he shook the torturer’s. When I «There was the short one, the and my sister could hear it all from Once, in prison, the doctor asked saw that, I knew that it was all one with had a lot of experience the next office. That’s why they me if I had suffered torture. My over. I didn’t care whose hand with ETA [the Basque separatist threatened to bring in my mum, only response was to lift up my he shook. He said: “this lad can organisation), and then there leaving my three month old baby shirt and show him my chest and go now” and that was that. That were two young ones. The with my eighty year old grandmo- back, covered in massive bruises torture was so intense that it blond one and the brown-haired ther who was crippled and couldn’t and ripped skin. It was put in can’t be compared with what ha- one. One played good cop and look after herself; it was awful. the records that no indications ppened to me in Manresa. That the other played the bad cop. During the time they had me had been observed that might character knew all the key points And then they’d switch. The upstairs without interrogating me, denote the use of torture in police in the body. He’d stop hitting you brown-haired one still lives here handcuffed to a radiator, I could custody.» in one place and start hitting you in Manresa. And while I was wor- hear the blows, screams and moa- in another. He’d play around with José Antonio Vidal Castaño king, and I haven’t been working ning of other friends they were a sewing needle. He’d move it for four years now, I’d see him torturing in the adjacent offices. between his fingers. They used «In those positions they had me, every year. I worked at the tax I heard them threaten my friend to stick these needles into one’s beating me on the buttocks for office for four years and I’d see with hanging him outside the fingernails and toenails. They hours and hours, no trousers on him each year when he came to window. At one point, I saw him. cause unbearable pain. Luckily, and getting beaten again and do in his tax returns… and if it His jaw was dislocated and he told he never did that to me. But, again... Naked yes, except for turned out that I was to attend to THAT HAPPENED TO ME. me that on the first night he lost psychologically, that terrified me my underwear. But then they him [....] I refused to do his tax consciousness due to the torture more than putting a gun to my made me lie down on a kind return… Each time, I went to the […] That night, when they locked head. In Barcelona, the torture of camp bed, with nothing on. boss and said I couldn’t do this me in the cell, they made me take methods were much crueller. Just a lit candle under my balls: guy’s tax return because I did all my clothes off, including my They had a much worse impact ON TORTURE AND IMPUNITY “We’re going to burn your balls… not want to talk to him…» underwear (I had my period and on me. He was a guy who wore We’re going to get your wife and they wouldn’t let me use any sani- civvies. A torture specialist. He Maria Teresa Vilajeliu Roig what we’re doing to you now is tary towels), and wear some dirty, had an incredible ability to inflict nothing compared to what we’re damp overalls that were open at harm.» (1960-1978) going to do to her… And let me the front, with no buttons. To take tell you one thing — said one Joan Sala i Fainé me up to the interrogation, they of them — look, see — and he handcuffed me behind my back opened the window — can you (twisting the handcuffs around 27 September 2016 to 8 January 2017 see where the beach is? We’ll until I had bruises) and when I put a couple of bullets in your asked them to handcuff me in head right here, we’ll kill you front so that I could cover myself, and thrown you into the sea and they insulted me with obscenities, no-one will ever know that you… picked me up by the collar of the The most abhorrent insults. overall and carried me up to the What else can I say: “We’re going Brigade offices by my neck.» to go and we’re going to rape Raquel López Navarro your wife! What we’re going to do is…” Just horrendous things. «I was detained in La Jonquera Acts of savagery, yes. And at until one of the inspectors from one point I was made to lean on the Political and Social Brigade the wall like this with my hands arrived who transferred me, and my feet were a metre away handcuffed and with a knee on the floor, like that, for hours. pressing onto my kidneys, to the And they were beating you with cells on Via Laietana in Barcelona. one of those sticks. They’d say On the journey I was continuously “Talk!” and every two hours beaten and insulted. They put they’d change shift. And off they some small handcuffs on me that went again! But first came the made my wrists bleed, to the point torture. One method consisted at which they had to loosen them in laying you onto a table and as they could see I was losing a around you... All of them had lot of blood. I spent eight days at been there! And they’d been the police station, I think it was there for an hour or however from the 24th to the 31st of March, long; first one hitting you, then English subjected to interrogations and another hitting, another on your torture. For four days I couldn’t feet, your hands…» empty my bowels and could hardly Francisco Téllez Luna urinate. When I did manage to, The stage for this exhibition is the city of Barcelona. It CONTEXT E ARLY MORNING shows the practice of torture suffered at the hands of go- 1. GROWTH WITHOUT 2. AGAINST ‘SUBVERSION’ 4. ARRESTS, OR CAPTURES 5. “Què VOLEN AQUESTA DEMOCRACY GENT?” (“WHAT CAN THESE PEOPLE WANT?”) vernment employees during the 1960s and 1970s. A report by Amnesty International Arrests were made under the An idea of the dictatorship that in 1973 highlighted that a signi- power of a governing decree. The has been widely broadcast is ficant number of people in Spain regime’s political police answe- According to official reports During Franco’s time, public order and the regime’s de- one of a duality, distinguishing were criminalised for their beliefs red directly to the civil governor, dated 24 March 1969, following between a first stage that — both political and religious. the highest civil and political the ‘State of exception’ decree fence of the social and political order was equated with was brutally violent and full This evidence exists despite authority. This figure had com- there were a total of 735 arrests of misery, and then a second official attempts to deny it. plete authority regarding public and house arrests across the repression. The repressive violence organised by the stage that was less severe and order and was the province’s whole of the country. The majo- more bureaucratic, enabling the The fight against the activities of representative in the ‘Movimien- rity of those held were of a very government was a phenomenon that ran throughout the Spanish economic ‘miracle’ as of those the authorities classified to Nacional’ (the ‘Nationalist young age, men and women who the 1960s.