Franco's Police and the Catalans
MOWRER, RICHARD SCOTT
Recent charges of police brutality in Barcelona have spurred new opposition to the Madrid regime FRANCO’S POLICE AND THE CATALANS By Richard Scott Mowrer BARCELONA THE BARCELONA BAR Association,...
...There is nothing underhanded or illegal about it...
...But it is noteworthy that the complaint against the omnipotent police has been made openly, through legal channels and without recourse to anonymity...
...Jose Maria Pi Suner, dean of the Bar Association here, told me: “I signed the document in my capacity as dean of the Bar Association, with the full approval and backing of the association’s members...
...In 21 years of Franco rule nothing quite like this has ever happened...
...Pujol’s father, Don Florencio Pujol, signed the complaint charging that his son was insulted, beaten unconscious, kept incommunicado and held longer than the lawful 72 hours after which a detainee is supposed to be either released or placed under the authority of the judiciary...
...Most of the plaintiffs are of relatively well-to-do Catalan families, devout Catholics in good standing in their communities...
...Meanwhile, the formal demand for an investigation of police methods has had a first result: General police headquarters in Madrid has denied that the Barcelona detainees were handled roughly...
...A statement to the Madrid press says that the fact that charges of maltreatment have been filed in Barcelona should not be construed to mean that the authorities concede that abuses actually occurred...
...El Cant de la Senvera—written more than half a century ago by the Catalan poet Juan Maragall—was subversive and promoted undesirable sentiments in favor of Catalan autonomy...
...The Franco authorities charged that the anthem...
...But they have merely stiffened the sullen, resentful opposition to pressures from Madrid’s centralist Government...
...The charges of police brutality are contained in a document sent to the regime’s prosecuting attorney for Barcelona which asks for an investigation with a view to punishing police officers found guilty of “abuses...
...By forbidding the showing of the Catalan flag, the teaching of the Catalan language and literature in the schools, and the publication of newspapers in Catalan, the Franco regime has sought to discourage regionalist sentiments...
...Recent charges of police brutality in Barcelona have spurred new opposition to the Madrid regime FRANCO’S POLICE AND THE CATALANS By Richard Scott Mowrer BARCELONA THE BARCELONA BAR Association, a professional body much respected in Catalonia, has requested an investigation of General Franco’s police force to examine charges of police brutality following arrests in May during the Caudillo’s visit here...
...I don’t know what will come of it—if anything...
...Jorge Pujol himself is a member of the lay organization, Catholic Action...
...Thirteen of the complaints are from persons arrested and later released...
...But it may be that this initiative will have a restraining influence on the police...
...One is filed on behalf of Jorge Pujol Soley, 31, who was arrested with the others, found guilty of putting out leaflets attacking Franco and is now serving a seven-year sentence imposed by a military court...
...He and all the plaintiffs except the elder Pujol were arrested following a concert here at which the audience stood up and sang an ancient Catalan anthem which had been crossed off the program at the last moment by official order...
...Appended are 14 individual complaints alleging maltreatment and beatings during interrogation, made out in legal form, sworn to, signed and notarized...
...The Barcelona Bar Association’s deliberate—if polite—move questioning local police methods is a measure of the growing solidarity among Catalans which has been particularly noticeable this year...
...Whether the charges will be investigated in accordance with normal judicial processes remains to be seen...
...But the police, the statement says, want the fullest light thrown on any acts which cast a slur on “the humane and fair methods which the Spanish police use at all times...
...The concert where it was sung in defiance of the authorities was a feature of the celebrations which had been organized officially to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Maragall’s birth...
Vol. 43 • October 1960 • No. 39
