International Amnesty reprimands Spain in his latest report on ‘The situation of human rights in the world’ for not effectively investigating the massacre recorded at the Melilla fence in 2022, the drama experienced in nursing homes during the pandemic and the use of the Pegasus spy program.
The chapter relating to Spain of the report includes progress, such as the elimination of barriers in access to abortion, the regulation of gender self-determination or the housing law, but warns of persistent problems, such as evictions of vulnerable peoplesexist violence or the “improper” use of the so-called gag law.
The main concern for the NGO is impunity for some human rights violationswhich “not only violates the rights of the victims, but also sends a discouraging message to society”
“In 2023 we have seen the an endemic problem in Spain: the lack of accountability of the State for human rights violations,” the director of AI Spain, Esteban Beltrán, stated in a video sent to the media.
From Melilla to Pegasus
The report denounces that “impunity for human rights violations committed at the borders” continues and that without response “the deaths, torture and illegal expulsions from Melilla to Morocco” occurred in June 2022, when At least 23 immigrants died trying to jump the fence.
It also criticizes the lack of an agile and effective asylum procedure and that unaccompanied minors arriving in the Canary Islands are detained alongside adults and do not receive sufficient protection.
When addressing the right to privacy, it highlights the lack of progress in the judicial investigations opened for the use of Pegasus to spy on journalists, politicians and members of Catalan civil society and the file of the case opened in the National Court on the use of that program against the President of the Government and the Ministers of the Interior and Defense, due to the lack of cooperation of the Israeli authorities.
The case was reopened precisely this Tuesday when the judge received new data from France.
Gag law and amnesty law
It dedicates a section to excessive use of force and warns that there are still reasons for concern about the use of force. rubber balls and taser guns by different police forces.
The report denounces that the citizen security law is “inappropriately” used to excessively limit freedom of expression of protesters and journalists, and criticizes the fact that investigations were not opened after it was published that police officers had infiltrated social movements using intimate relationships as a cover.
In another section titled “impunity” he reviews open (and closed) processes by complaints of torture during the Franco regime and makes a brief reference to the amnesty bill, to show its concern that excessive use of force by the police may be amnestied or victims of crime may be insufficiently protected.
Although the Government announced that the granting of new export licenses for weapons and military material to Israel has been suspended since October, AI regrets “irresponsible” transfers in the first half, worth more than 44 million euros.
For the NGO, laws such as the Official Secrets of 1968, a vestige of the Francoist past, continue to prevent investigation and access to justice on human rights and should be reformed.
Advances at risk in autonomous communities
The report includes the 58 women murdered at the hands of their partners and ex-partners last year and the two girls who were victims of vicarious violence, a number that has now risen to seven this year.
Among the advances, AI highlights the fight against sexual violence, the reform of abortion so that minors aged 16 and 17 can resort to it without parental consent or the trans law, but also warns of the risk of there being autonomous communities that torpedo them , such as the case of “regressive” legislation approved by the Madrid Assembly on gender self-determination and sex change.
“These achievements are marred by a real risk that these advances will become wet paper if concrete measures are not taken for their effective implementation,” states the NGO, which warns that inequality in the implementation of these laws, and others such as the Democratic Memory Law, in the autonomous communities generates gaps in the protection of rights. humans.
The right to housing, health and the environment
Regarding the right to housing, he values ​​the law approved in Spain, but regrets that it did not include sanctions to guarantee control of rental priceswhich does not prohibit evictions of people at risk of homelessness or set annual objectives to increase the social housing stock.
According to the report, from January to September, 19,332 evictions were carried out, affecting thousands of people who did not meet the restrictive criteria to benefit from the suspension of the measure.
The NGO also recalls that 4,500 people, 1,800 of them minors, continued to live in Madrid’s Cañada Real without electricity.
In the section dedicated to the right to health, denounces the cuts suffered in primary care in eight communitiesaccording to reports published in 2023, despite the recommendations of the Council of Europe and regrets that deaths and other rights violations committed in nursing homes during the pandemic remain uninvestigated.
And in the face of the major heat waves and fires that are ravaging Spain, it is committed to more ambitious and effective measures to fight climate change.
