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8 November 2001 Edition

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Basuqe women reveals details of torture

Late last month, the Basque newspaper Gara published a series of photographs taken by a forensic doctor showing graphic evidence of the torture suffered by Basque woman Iratxe Sorzabal after she was arrested by the Spanish Guardia Civil.

But this is not an individual case or a rarity in the Spanish police custody.

In its 2001 Report, Amnesty International includes the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment's description of a 1997 visit to ETA prisoner Jesús Arkauz Arana.

The Committee commented that Arkauz's account of ill-treatment by the Guardia Civil after his extradition from France and while being held in isolation was technically credible and 'the manner in which he described the sensation of losing consciousness as a result of asphyxiation was particularly convincing".

At the time, the Committee recommended an investigation "of a thorough and independent nature... into the methods used by the Guardia Civil when holding and questioning persons" suspected of involvement in armed groups.

In April 2000, the Committee subsequently expressed its disappointment that the Spanish authorities had not carried out such an investigation. It also found that examining judges and magistrates "could be more proactive" when they received allegations of ill treatment.

The police practice of torture does not only affect suspected members of ETA, but also all those vulnerable, like immigrants and members of different ethnic groups.

Iratxe Sorzabal's was arrested at 9:30am on 30 March 2001 by plain-clothes agents of the Guardia Civil as she left her house in Hernani (Gipuzkoa). She was held incommunicado under anti-terrorism legislation and transferred to Madrid.

Spanish anti-terrorism legislation allows for a maximum detention of 72 hours, but this timeframe can be extended by another 48 hours if the police require it and the judge accepts it. In Sorzabal's case, this extension was accepted in spite of the fact that she had to be taken to hospital as a consequence of the treatment she was receiving.

Additionally, Iratxe Sorzabal was brought before a judge of the Audiencia Nacional (a special court mainly dealing with trials related to the conflict in the Basque country) at 11am on 4 April, exceeding by two hours the maximum time limit for detention according to the law.

Sorzabal was brought incommunicado before the judge, that is, without the assistance of a lawyer of her choice. She refused to make a statement, but did relate to Judge Ismael Moreno the treatment she had received.

The result of this treatment is summarised in Doctor Itxaso Idoiaga's medical report, which concludes that there was clear evidence of the application of electric shocks and neck injuries compatible with the mechanism of forced bending of the neck maintained over a number of hours. She also concluded that there was subjective evidence regarding smothering with a plastic bag and other alleged forms of torture.

Iratxe Sorzobal was released on 13 September. Her case, together with those of other seven Basque citizens, is being investigated by the European Committee. In a detailed account of what had happened to her, Iratxe Sorzabal has told of the torture that she suffered at the hands of the Guardia Civil over the five days she was held incommunicado.

Sorzabal explained that six hours after her detention and after the Guardia Civil had finished searching her house, two Guardia Civil came to transfer her to Madrid (400 kilometres away) by car. On the way, they used electrodes on her, abused her sexually and psychologically. The testimony below is a part of the complaint made by her to the judge.

"As soon as I entered the car the policeman in charge said: 'Well, here is where all that nonsense of rights, courts and shit like that ends. From now on you are going to find out what is good for you! Have you heard, bitch?' He hit me in the head. Then they put a blindfold on me and continued with the blows to the head, insults and threats.

"Apart from the driver, the other three beat me hard around the head. The one who was on my right took out some device that he was holding between his legs and began to give me electric shocks to the right side. Whilst this was happening, the one on my left took out a plastic bag and put it over my head, impeding my breathing to a point where I almost fainted. The punches to the head, which I received from the one in the front, were continuous. Also, the one who was on my right hand side rubbed my chest. All of that, the electrodes, the "bag", the touching and beating were continuous amongst shouts, insults and threats. I lost consciousness on at least two occasions and I wet myself."

During the journey to Madrid, Iratxe Sorzabal explained that the Guardia Civil threatened to do to her what "they had done to Geresta or what they had done to Basaiaun, that they would take me to a mountain and kill me.

"They stopped the car (they said that we were in the mountain) and they put a pistol in my hands. I didn't want to take it and they continued to hit me, forcing me to take the gun. They told me get out of the car and run, that then they would shoot me and later say that I had tried to escape and they had to shoot and kill me".


In Madrid, Iratxe Sorzabal was taken to a doctor, but at the time she was afraid he was another policeman ready to torture her further, so she did not explain to him about the treatment she had suffered during the journey. The torture continued, with repeated sexual, psychological and physical abuse. She says the Guardia Civil stripped her, threatened to gang rape her, and told her they would do the same to her mother and sisters.

Finally, she decided to tell the duty doctor, Angel Canelada, what was happening to her: "I believed that if he was really a doctor he would help me and if not, to be honest, it would be impossible that they could do anything worse to me that what I had already suffered... I was very scared but I couldn't stand any more... my head felt like it was going to explode, a terribly sore neck, extreme physical exhaustion and so I began showing him the marks that had been left by the application of electrodes. When he saw them he told me he was going to take me to hospital."

Finally, one of the senior officers of the Guardia Civil turned up to explain to Iratxe what they wanted from her.

"They told me that I had three options:

1. If I didn't make a statement, they were going to continue as they had done until then, that was torturing me without stop: the bag, electrodes, blows. He said that his superiors were well aware of the treatment I was receiving and they didn't have any problem with it.

2. If I didn't make a statement repeating word for word what they told me to say, the treatment would get worse, much worse than what I had suffered to that point, that they still had three days to make me suffer so much that they would kill me.

3. If I were to make a statement like they told me, they wouldn't lay another hand on me and would let me sleep after it.

They told me that I didn't have any rights and that I had to choose one of the three options. I was physically and psychologically destroyed and I told them that I would make the statement that they wanted."


Four die as Turkish police attack death-fast houses




Four activists died on Monday 5 November after police raided the death-fast houses where the relatives and supporters of political prisoners in Turkey have been carrying out a hunger strike for the last 13 months.

Official sources claimed that the activists committed suicide by setting themselves on fire when Turkish police attacked homes to forcibly take hunger strikers to a hospital, local media reported. Activists rejected this and aid the four had been shot dead by police.

Police were trying to end a year-old campaign of hunger strikes in which 42 people have starved to death. The demonstrators are protesting conditions in Turkey's new F-Type prisons, where political prisoners are held in isolation, leaving them exposed to possible abuse by guards.

The raid began with armoured police vehicles and heavy construction machines smashing through barricades set up by militants around the two houses in an Istanbul suburb. Police fired bullets and tear gas, and three militants were wounded by gunshots, Anatolia, a Turkish news agency, reported. Police said they took at least 14 injured people to hospitals and detained three others, Anatolia said.

Hospital officials were not immediately able to cite causes of death.

Inmates, their relatives and friends began the fasting campaign last year to protest the transfer of prisoners from large, dormitory-style prison wards to the F-Type prisons.

When the transfer of inmates to the new prisons began on 19 December 2000, 30 prisoners were killed in an operation that involved more than 20,000 troops and police. A soldier was also killed.

The hunger strikers have been taking sugar and salt water with vitamins to prolong their fast. They and their supporters threatened earlier this year to set themselves on fire if police intervened to stop the protest or take them away.

A prisoners' solidarity group, Ozgur Tayad, said one of the dead, Arzu Guler, had been fasting for 152 days. The other three were supporters of the hunger strikers, the organisation said.

After the raid, doors torn from their hinges lay by the roadside near the houses. Metal bars on the house windows were twisted and broken.

Husnu Ondul, the president of Turkey's Human Rights Association, said he was skeptical of police claims that the hunger strikers had committed suicide. "Given past practice, nobody can really say what happened,'' he said.

During the December prison transfer, six female inmates of an Istanbul prison died because of a fire in their cell. Government officials insisted the inmates started the fire, but a forensic report leaked by prosecutors suggested that security forces may have started it by throwing tear gas canisters into the cell.


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