Spanish amnesty meets strong criticism

Press, 9 August 1976, Page 8

Spanish amnesty meets strong criticism

NZPA-Reuter Madrid Spain’s Justice Ministry, has announced that 45 political prisoners were relea-M from gaol in the first three days of King Juan Carlos’s amnesty, expected to free hundreds of political prisoners. A Barcelona Bar Association committee on Saturday called the decree “limited and confused.” In Madrid, 130 lawyers who defend political prisoners denounced the decree, officially published on Wednesday, and said that despite its billing, it “does not decree an amnesty.”

| According to the official Justice Ministry figures, the largest number of political prisoners, 18, were released from the Madrid provincial prison in Carabanchel. The Madrid lawyers said in a communique that, despite official reports that more than 40 prisoners had been released, they could account f„r no more than about 20. In another aspect of the amnesty, the Government’s official gazette on Saturday published an order restoring the socialist leader, Mr Enrique Tiemo Galvan, to the chair of constitutional law at the University of Salamanca from which he was removed in 1965. Convalescing from

an eye operation, he said he was “very satisfied." In the Basque town of Vitoria, police used rubber bullets and smoke grenades on Friday night to break up a crowd of some 800 demonstrators. The demonstrators took to the streets to celebrate the arrival of Jesus Fernandez Naves, Miguel Dlavarria, and Juan Jose Santisteban, who were released from Carabanchel under the amnesty.

The police have charged that the three men were leaders of the strikes, demonstrations, and riots that erupted in Vitoria in March, and resulted in five deaths.