10 years of jail for speaking out

Whoever dares to say that Spain is a democracy is absolutely wrong. And the increasing ammount of jail sentences for ideological "crimes" (crimethink in Orwell's premonitory nightmare) is a good example of it. Kafka's works will also soon probably become compulsory reading for all wannabee lawyers, so they know in advance what the law is worth.

21 activists of the Basque rights watchdog Comitees for Amnesty and its successor Askatasuna (freedom) have been sentenced by the Spanish Neoinquistion (Supreme Court) to 8 to 10 years of jail for crimes such as denouncing torture, criticising judicial rulings or demanding the repatriation of Basque prisioners. The ruling admits that the struggle of these organizations has never been violent but it argues, based just on ad hoc police reports, that they are subservient of ETA because they share "the same project, the one promoted in political terms by the Nationalist Left, in which armed action is done in defense of the rights of the Basque Country", that they also aim "to depose Spain in the Basque Country". For that shared ideology they are officially described as "terrorist organization", even if they have always acted within the law.

One can just wonder how many new jails they will have to build if they want to apply the law to the many Basque citizens who also share that project and who also denounce tortures and other abuses daily.

image of the process

Source: Gara (in Spanish).