Those arrested in Reus are:
On the Morning of Friday June 9th 2006, along with a large repressive display coordinated by the Civil Guard, agents of the National Police, Mossos d’Esquadra (Regional Catalan Police) and the local police in Reus,Tarragona arrested in this Catalan city, 3 members of the Communist Party Of Spain (reconstituted) PCE(r). These violent arrests were made as the Civil Guard blow up the front door of the house as screams and bangs were heard by neighbours.
Those arrested were taken immediately to the Civil Guard Head Quarters in Madrid and held incommunicado, isolated from the outside world, unlawfully accused of belonging to the armed organisation GRAPO, a false accusation, such as many previous detentions, they are communist militants, whose only crime would be ‘illegal political association’.
Those arrested in Reus are:
Arantza Díaz Villar: 35 years old, from Gasteiz in the Basque Country. She was an underground activist since 2002. She is a militant of the PCE(r). In Gasteiz she was a of the feminist organisation ‘Pipi’ and was part of the pirate radio station Hala Bedi Irratia as well as being part of the internationalist solidarity movement with Chiapas and Turkey. She was also a pro-amnesty activist.
Juan García Martín: 52 years old from Seville. He has already served 20 years for his anti-fascist militancy. He was brutally tortured for 10 days in a row. After he finished the sentence he became an underground activist in the year 2000. He is a member of the Central Committee of the PCE(r).
Carmen Cayetano Navarro: 52 years old from Vigo, Galicia. She has already served 20 years for her anti-fascist militancy. She was brutally tortured during her pervious arrest. While she was in prison, her 18 year old daughter died in an accident. She was not only prevented from attending her funeral in Vigo but was punished further by being held in an isolation cell. After completing her sentence, Carmen became an underground activist in the year 2000. She is a member of the Central Committee of the PCE(r).
These arrests are part of the tricky and lying politics that the Spanish State is developing. It talks about ‘peace’, ‘dialog’, ‘the end of violence’, but they keep arresting revolutionaries, torturing them in police detention centres, refusing to admit that the PCE(r) is a revolutionary working class communist party which DOES NOT carry out the armed struggle before or after in its 38 year history.
They are lying when they say that these militants are GRAPO activists. They are lying when they say that they are involved in military actions. They are lying when the arrests, torture and life imprisonment of these three communists are sold to public opinion as a fight against ‘armed terrorist violence’.
Understandably, we are very worried as to what will happen within the next five days that they will be held in isolation. The last PCE(r) militant arrested just a few months ago received a broken nose and finger as well as several broken bones after being tortured on top of the drugs he was administrated which made him loose any awareness of reality.
After knowing the accusations against these detainees we have an idea of the type of treatment the Civil Guard will provide in their centers of isolation and torture to political detainees.
Once again the fascist Spanish state and its repressive bodies along, with their means of control of the media who have been triumphal after having hit again the antifascist resistance. They are now talking of a new ‘disbandment’ or ‘breakdown’ in organisation (by the way, is that the 30th or 40th time?). They are now talking about how to build peace... The peace of the cemeteries we could say.
We demand the immediate acknowledgement of these fighters for this is what they really are: communist militants. Revolutionaries of the PCE(r).
We demand the cancellation of the Law of Parties, after which all these actions by the state are allowed. The dissolution of the National Audience, which is the substitute of the Public Order Tribunal of the Franco times.
We demand the total amnesty for all the revolutionaries held in prison.
We demand broad political and social liberties. Without freedom of speech and organisation democracy will never exist.
Whilst waiting for more detailed information base on their own formal complaints of torture that they have been subjected to, which will be delayed for several days due to being held in total isolation in the Soto del Real Prison. We can advance that they have been subjected to torture, ill-treatment and sexual assault with intent.
The one worst affected by this has been the Basque communist political prisoner Arantza Díaz Villar who has been stripped naked and attempt was made to sexually assault her as well as being violently beaten and suffering sophisticated torture that she will tell about whenever its possible to take her formal complaint out of isolation.
Carmen Caetano Navarro, who has been suffering for years with along process of arthritis and symptoms of bone degeneration. Especially in the cervical area, an illness that the Civil Guards knew perfectly about, as she has been tortured with brutal beatings to the head and the spine area as well as other beatings to the rest of her body.
Juan García Martín has been brutally beating throughout his body, especially to the sides. Lets remember that Juan (the same as Carmen) went through a hunger strike of 435 days between November 1989 and February 1991 that left him with serious physical marks which is where the beatings were mostly concentrated on.
More over, during the seventy hour long interrogation, none of the three PCE(r) militants were asked not once about the armed organisation GRAPO and even less about the actions that the media and state authorities were so sure to pin on them armed actions such as in Zaragoza and Castellón.
But they are truly aware that the PCE(r) has nothing to do with the development of armed struggle and therefore the tortures didn’t want to waste one moment in asking about something that those arrested could possibly be aware of.
They were arrested, brutally tortured and imprisoned because of their communist militancy, for being members of a revolutionary and proletarian organisation. The blame for these accusations does not only rest with the fascist state and their tortures, the Civil Guard, but also with the media that only reports from their state sources without checking other counter-information sources.
We call on to all those with any shame still left and some common sense not to silence again the voice of this communist, of these revolutionaries. The fascist Spanish State talks about peace, meanwhile in the police stations and isolation cells they practice torture with total impunity. To Be Silent Is To Collaborate.
We will issue further details as we receive them on the detailed declarations of the torture Arantza, Carmen and Juan have suffered.