Human rights in Spain

Spain

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This article is a summary of the state of human rights in Spain.

Law and government

Spain is a democracy with a constitutional monarch. The Cortes Generales consists of two chambers, the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. Since 2004, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) has been Prime Minister of Spain, with the title President of the Government. Elections are free and fair. The judiciary is independent.

Internal security responsibilities are divided among the National Police, which are responsible for security in urban areas; the Civil Guard, which police rural areas and control borders and highways; and police forces under the authority of the autonomous communities of Catalonia and the Basque Country. Civilian authorities maintained effective control of the security forces. There have been allegations that some members of the security forces have committed isolated human rights abuses.

The market-based economy, with primary reliance on private enterprise, provided the population of over 40 million with a high standard of living.

Human rights

The Government respects the human rights of its citizens; although there are a few problems in some areas, the law and judiciary provide effective means of addressing individual instances of abuse. There are allegations that a few members of the security forces abused detainees and mistreated foreigners and illegal immigrants. According to Amnesty International (AI), government investigations of such alleged abuses are often lengthy and punishments were light. Lengthy pretrial detention and delays in trials are sometimes problems. Violence against women was a problem, which the Government took steps to address. Trafficking in women and teenage girls for the purpose of prostitution was a problem, which the Government took steps to address.

Basque separatists

From 22 March 2006 ETA (Basque Fatherland and Liberty) had been operating under an indefinite ceasefire, which, however, ended on the 30th of December 2006. ETA sympathizers also continued a campaign of street violence and vandalism in the Basque region. Judicial proceedings against members of ETA continued, and Spanish and French police arrested 126 suspected ETA members and collaborators. The Spanish National Audience has made relatively regular police raids in which they arrest young separatist activists allegedly suspicious of belonging to ETA, they are locked for 5 days with the Civil Guard under interrogation with no cameras (it has been demanded of the Spanish government to provide cameras and ensure safety for arrested suspects through this isolation period, but it has been avoided), and when they are freed they claim having been tortured. There have been lots of claims of torture, even by the director of the most important Basque-language newspaper Egunkaria Martxelo Otamendi, many of these cases have been defended in court and a few led to sanctions for Civil Guard members. Through the last decade in several town squares crowds of family members of arrested individuals have regularly gathered showing pictures of their family members accompanied by slogans of protest, these gatherings have very often been dispersed by police. Prolonged fights between locals and police in Basque towns have not been uncommon in the last decade.

See also

• Francoist concentration camps

External links

• http://hrw.org/doc/?t=europe&c=spain – Human Rights Watch on Spain
• US Department of State Report on Human Rights in Spain, 2004 (Most text taken directly from this article)
• Censorship in Spain - IFEX