‘Torture of Basques’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33963, 2 October 1975, Page 15

‘Torture of Basques’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, October 1. Amnesty International today accused Spanish security forces of “massive. and systematic use of torture in the Basque provinces” during a three-month drive against separatist guerrillas earlier this year. Detailed allegations of savage beating, mental torture id sexual humiliation were given in a report based on the findings of a two-man Amnesty mission which visited Spain in July. Spanish authorities refused to let the mission members — a lawyer, Thomas Jones, of Washington, D.C., and a West German philosophy professor, Burkhard Wisser — inspect any prisons. But the report said that they built up a picture from interviews with released detainees who either suffered torture or witnessed it, and from lawyers who visited gaoled clients. Amnesty — an organisation devoted to the rights of political prisoners — concentrated its attention on the provinces of Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa during the three-month “state of exception” proclaimed by authorities last April 25.

The mission reported direct evidence of torture against 45 Basques in addition to “credible and convincing evidence” that torture was used against a minimum of 250 others. “Every victim interviewed by the mission was subjected to at least one session of interrogation and torture a day. Some were tortured during as many as five sessions a day,” the report said. “Sessions lasted from half and hour to an estimated six hours. One victim told of 30 sessions of torture in 21 days of continuous imprisonment. “The methods of torture included severe and systematic beatings with a variety of contusive weapons, falanga (beating on the soles of the feet), burning with cigarettes, near-drowning by being submerged in water upside down, enforced sleeplessness, and forms of psychological stress.” Mental torture included mock executions, sexual threats, and the technique known as “el cerrojo”—rattling cell bolts to induce fear that more torture was imminent. The report said: “The women torture victims were so sadistically beaten and humiliated that it was not easy for them to come forward to meet the Amnesty International mission. Some did, however, and they told of sexual threats, including sterilisation, of being made to walk naked in the police station, of being manhandled in front of male friends.” Amnesty said that the rea-

sons for torture were, first, to extract confessions, second, to intimidate the general Basque population after the killing of policemen. The report said that the intimidation “became anarchic vengeance provoked by two further assassinations of policemen in early May.” The report estimated that security forces arrested upwards of 2000 Basques during the three-month period. It said that normal legal safeguards were swept aside. Amnesty presented a 16-point list of demands to the Spanish Government. Among these was an immediate guarantee of humane treatment in prisons, prompt appearance of a prisoner before a court, the accountability of senior police officers for torture of prisoners in their charge, and abolition of the death penalty. Also demanded was compensation for victims and full medical documentation in prisons.