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Title

Amnesty International Report 2010 - Spain

Publisher

Amnesty International

Country

Spain

Publication Date

28 May 2010

Cite as

Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2010 - Spain, 28 May 2010, available at:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4c03a7ff4a.html [accessed 3 September 2010]

Amnesty International Report 2010 - Spain

KINGDOM OF SPAIN

Head of state: King Juan Carlos I de Borbón
Head of government: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes
Population: 44.9 million
Life expectancy: 80.7 years
Under-5 mortality (m/f): 5/5 per 1,000
Adult literacy: 97.9 per cent

Allegations  of  torture  and  other  ill-treatment  by  law  enforcement  officials  continued,  but
reportedly  decreased  in  police  stations  which  had  installed  CCTV  systems.  Reforms  to
asylum legislation recognized gender and sexual orientation as grounds for persecution, but
increased procedural restrictions on applying for asylum. The authorities continued to hold
detainees incommunicado, despite repeated calls from international human rights bodies for
this  practice  to  be  abolished.  The  armed  Basque  group  Euskadi  Ta  Askatasuna  (ETA)
continued its campaign of violence, claiming responsibility for killing two people. Victims of
gender-based  violence,  and  human  trafficking  in  particular,  continued  to  lack  adequate
state  protection  and  assistance.  There  was  little  progress  in  investigating  enforced
disappearances  and  mass  graves  relating  to  the  Spanish  Civil  War  and  the  Franco  regime.
Government  measures  to  tackle  racism  were  inadequate.  The  application  of  universal
jurisdiction for international crimes was restricted following legislative reform.

Torture and other ill-treatment/police and security forces

Allegations of torture and other ill-treatment by law enforcement officials continued. Following
the introduction in 2008 of comprehensive CCTV systems in Catalan autonomous police stations,
a national NGO network reported that complaints of ill-treatment against Catalan police officers
had gone down by almost 40 per cent compared to 2007. None of the complaints they recorded
related to ill-treatment occurring inside a police station. However, the national police and Civil
Guard had still not implemented these measures, except with detainees held incommunicado,
and only then when specifically requested by a judge.

The Public Prosecutor's annual report stated that there had been more than 230 complaints of
torture and other ill-treatment by law enforcement officials during the year. No steps had been
taken to create an independent police complaints commission, despite repeated

recommendations by international human rights bodies, including the UN Human Rights
Committee.



No date was set for the trial of the two police officers charged with killing Osamuyia
Akpitaye while he was being forcibly deported from Spain in June 2007.



In June a video was published on the internet showing the degrading treatment of a
Senegalese man during an attempt to forcibly deport him from Spain. The footage showed
him lying on his stomach on the tarmac at Madrid airport, his arms and legs tied together
behind his back and apparently being gagged by plain-clothes police officers. The officers
then picked him up off the ground, still tied up, and put him into the back of a police van
after the pilot refused to allow him to board in these conditions.



In June, three police officers accused of ill-treating a detainee at Les Corts autonomous
Catalan police station in Barcelona in March 2007 were convicted of assault and
sentenced to a €600 fine. A fourth officer was acquitted. Concealed camera footage
showed the officers kicking and beating the detainee.

Migrants' rights, refugees and asylum-seekers

Migrants  and  asylum-seekers  continued  to  risk  their  lives  attempting  to  reach  Spain  along
dangerous  land  and  sea  routes,  although  official  figures  showed  a  45  per  cent  decrease  in
arrivals  by  boat  compared  to  the  previous  year.  Spain  continued  to  have  one  of  the  lowest
asylum recognition rates in the EU.

In February, police trade unions reported that officers at the Vallecas police station in Madrid
had  received  orders  to  arrest  a  specified  monthly  quota  of  irregular  migrants;  similar
instructions were reported by police in other parts of the country. The Minister of the Interior
publicly  denied  that  such  a  policy  existed.  NGOs  across  Spain  reported  an  increase  in  racially
motivated identity  checks  by  police over  the course  of the  year;  this  was  believed  to  be as  a
result of migration control measures.

In October, Spain ratified Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which
prohibits collective expulsion of foreign nationals.

The reform of the asylum law, adopted in October, broadens the grounds for granting refugee
status  or  subsidiary  protection  to  include  individuals  persecuted  on  the  grounds  of  gender  or
sexual  orientation.  However,  it  also  excludes  EU  citizens  from  seeking  asylum,  eliminates  the
possibility  of  claiming  asylum  in  Spanish  embassies  abroad,  and  increases  the  grounds  for
excluding  an  individual  from  refugee  status  on  the  basis  of  undefined,  vague  criteria  such  as
"constituting a danger to national security".

The Law on Foreigners was amended in October. The amendments grant NGOs access to
migration detention centres, but increase the maximum period of detention of irregular
migrants from 40 to 60 days.

Counter-terror and security

The authorities continued to hold in incommunicado detention people suspected of involvement
in terrorism-related activities, despite repeated calls from international human rights bodies for
this practice to be abolished. Under current legislation, detainees held incommunicado have
severely restricted access to legal representation and are at increased risk of torture and other
ill-treatment.

In  its  concluding  observations  of  19  November,  the  UN  Committee  against  Torture  (CAT)
reiterated  its  concern  that  Spain's  incommunicado  detention  regime  for  cases  involving
terrorism  or  armed  groups  weakened  necessary  legal  safeguards  against  acts  of  torture  or  ill-

treatment. The CAT called upon Spain to amend the incommunicado regime with a view to
abolishing it.



Following  the  refusal  of  the  Public  Prosecutor  and  investigating  judge  to  examine  the
allegations of torture made before the investigating court by Mohammed Fahsi, in June
his  lawyer  submitted  a  formal  complaint  in  relation  to  the  treatment  received  by
Mohammed  Fahsi  while  he  was  detained  incommunicado  by  the  Civil  Guard  in  January
2006. No response had been received by the end of the year. In September, Mohammed
Fahsi  and eight other  men  were  put on  trial  on  terrorism-related  charges.  In  December
the  four-year  limit  on  pre-trial  detention  for  people  accused  of  serious  crimes  was
reached, and he was released awaiting sentence.



In  May  the  Supreme  Court  acquitted  Sabino  Ormazabal  and  seven  other  men  previously
convicted of "collaborating with terrorism" in the so-called "Macroproceso 18/98" trial. A
woman  who  had  been  convicted  of  membership  of  a  terrorist  organization  was  also
acquitted. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism and the UN
Human  Rights  Committee  had  raised  concerns  in  2008  about  the  excessively  broad  and
imprecise nature of some articles of Spanish counter-terrorism legislation, including those
applied in this case, which may not be in line with international law.

Abuses by armed groups

ETA claimed responsibility for numerous bomb attacks during the year, including a car bomb
which killed two Civil Guard officers in Mallorca and an attack on a Civil Guard barracks in the
Basque Country, both in July.

Children's rights

Children  living  in  state-run  children's  homes  were  exposed  to  human  rights  violations.  There
were  complaints  of  negligence,  forced  medication,  excessive  use  of  force  and  mental  and
physical  abuse  by  staff.  A  study  published  by  the  Spanish  Ombudsperson  in  2008  highlighted
similar issues.

Violence against women and girls

Despite  some  positive  developments  in  recent  years,  women  continued  to  be  killed  by  their
partners and former partners. Migrant women who were victims of domestic violence continued
to  face  additional  difficulties  in  obtaining  justice  and  specialist  services.  The  institutional
response  to  other  forms  of  gender-based  violence,  including  human  trafficking  for  sexual
exploitation, remained inadequate. There was no institutionalized system for identifying victims
of  sex  trafficking  or  referring  them  for  assistance.  Victims  of  gender-based  violence  seeking
redress faced numerous obstacles, including lack of compensation for the psychological effects
of violence.



Eight  years  after  being  run  over  and  stabbed  15  times  by  her  ex-husband,  Ascension
Anguita had still received no compensation for the attack, and her recovery was impeded
by inadequate institutional support. She remained unable to work and was diagnosed with
post-traumatic  stress  disorder,  living  on  a  monthly  disability  allowance  of  €401.  In  July
2008,  her  ex-husband  became  entitled  to  six  days  leave  a  month  from  prison,  during
which time Ascension Anguita had to leave her home and go into hiding. The police told
her they did not have sufficient resources to protect her.

Racism

The National Human Rights Plan launched in 2008 contained a provision to establish a
comprehensive National Strategy to Combat Racism; however, at the end of the year this had

still  not  begun,  contrary  to  the  recommendations  of  the  UN  Committee  on  the  Elimination  of
Racial Discrimination and the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. The Council for
Advancement  and  Equal  Treatment,  established  by  law  in  2003,  was  still  not  operational.
According to the 2009 annual report of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, published in June,
this  leaves  Spain  as  one  of  only  four  EU  countries  that  do  not  have  a  national  equality  body
producing statistics on complaints about racism. Spain is also one of just six EU member states
that do not collect or publish official data on racist crimes.

Enforced disappearances

In September, Spain ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance, but enforced disappearance is still not criminalized in Spanish law.

In  December  2008  the  National  Criminal  Court  ruled  that  it  was  not  competent  to  investigate
cases of enforced disappearances dating from the Spanish Civil War and early years of the rule
of  Francisco  Franco;  it  therefore  referred  the  114,266  suspected  cases  of  enforced
disappearance  to  the  43  local  criminal  courts  in  whose  jurisdiction  the  mass  graves  had  been
found.  Subsequently,  13  courts  classified  the  cases  as  ordinary  crimes  and  closed  the
investigations on the grounds that the crimes had passed the statute of limitations (which sets a
maximum period of time that legal proceedings may be initiated after a specific crime). Only
three of the local courts classified the cases as crimes under international law (which have no
expiry date). These investigations were ongoing at the end of the year.

On 11 March the Senate rejected a draft law calling on the government to take on the task of
locating,  exhuming  and  identifying  the  remains  of  victims  of  the  Civil  War  and  the  rule  of
Francisco  Franco.  This  was  in  contradiction  to  the  2007  Law  of  Historical  Memory,  which
contained  provisions  to  help  families  locate  and  recover  the  remains  of  their  loved  ones.  The
2007  law  itself  falls  short  of  international  standards  relating  to  the  right  to  reparation  for
victims and relatives of victims of gross human rights violations.

International Justice

In  October,  parliament  adopted  an  amendment  to  the  Law  on  the  Judiciary,  which  would
restrict  the  application  of  universal  jurisdiction.  Thirteen  cases  under  investigation  in  Spain
could be closed as a result. The amendment limits universal jurisdiction to cases in which the
victims  are  Spanish  or  in  which  Spain  has  a  "relevant  connecting  link",  where  the  alleged
perpetrator  is  in  Spain,  and  as  long  as  no  effective  investigation  or  prosecution  has  already
begun in another country or international court. The criteria for determining what constitutes
"effective"  in  this  context  were  not  defined.  The  legislative  amendment  was  passed  without
specific debate.

Amnesty International visit/reports



Amnesty International delegates visited Spain in November.



Spain: Out of the Shadows – time to end incommunicado detention (EUR 41/001/2009)



Spain: Adding insult to injury – police impunity two years on (EUR 41/010/2009)



Spain: Briefing to the Committee against Torture (EUR 41/004/2009)