EXECUTIONS IN SPAIN

Evening Star, Issue 23351, 22 August 1939, Page 7

EXECUTIONS IN SPAIN

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Executions in Spain! Republican prisoners machine-gunned in batches! Recent cables tell of the brutal terror meted out to the opponents of the so-called national movement of General Franco. For thousands of Spaniards, whose sole crime was that they resisted or did not aid the Fascist invaders of their country, Franco has spelled death or imprisonment through the recently enacted “ Law of Political Responsibility.” Reminiscent of the iniquities of the Inquisition, this law has not the slightest legal or ethical justification. All who apposed Franco, and < even those who tried to be neutral, come within its scope. It enables Franco to punish innocent persons for “ crimes of omission or collective consent.” Enactment of this outrageous code impelled Georges Bidault, well-known French writer, to declare in the Catholic daily, ‘ Aube ’: “ Here is a retroactive law which punishes acts in no way forbidden at the time they were committed, a law which establishes crimes of omission, a law which makes punishable a propaganda which was legal at the time it was made in short, a law of terrorism, a law not of criminals but of suspects, a law of iniquity.” It has been reported tons that numbers of the Republican refugees who fled to France are being forced to return to Spain, where death or imprisonment awaits them. The French Government has broken the undertaking made.to the refugee organisations. ■

All who love justice, peace, and freedom, all thinking people who must realise the service the Republicans have rendered to the cause of democracy, will endorse our protest to M. Daladier. We appeal to trade unions, women’s organisations, peace groups, and, public men to cable their, protests immediately to the French Government in, order to save the lives of these champions of liberty.—We are, etc., Dunedin Branch. N.Z. Spanish Medical Aid Committee. J. Townley, 9 Broadway, Dunedin, Secretary. August 21.