Amnesty International includes Spain’s crackdown on Catalonia in its 2019 Human Rights Review

Amnesty International has published its 2019 annual report on human rights in Europe. In the chapter dedicated to Spain, the NGO refers to Spain’s Supreme Court sentencing of Catalonia’s pro-independence leaders in terms of violation of human rights. Amnesty also describes the convictions of civil society leaders Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez as “an excessive and disproportionate restriction of their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly” and recalls that Amnesty requested their “immediate release”.

The annual report also mentions police violence against protestors after the sentence was made public in October 2019, the imprisonment of young people in the Basque Country after a bar fight with off-duty Spanish police officers; obstacles to the right to information that impedes the work of journalists in demonstrations; trials for ‘terrorism glorification’, ‘offending religious feelings’ and ‘insulting the crown’; the absence of investigations into allegations of torture by the Spanish police; failure to respond to asylum requests and migrant expulsions; sexist violence; violation of housing and health law; and the impunity of the Franco regime.

On this last matter, the report states that in October the Spanish government exhumed dictator Francisco Franco, but there are still victims of human rights violations during the Franco regime who continue to have their right of truth, justice and reparation not guaranteed. There have also been no investigations into violations of international law during the 1936-39 War and the Franco regime. The report criticizes the lack of support for the victims’ relatives buried in mass graves and the judicial difficulties of stolen babies in discovering the truth about their family members and their identity.