The Social Forum demands to improve the Classified Information Act and to clarify the enforced disappearances

Euskaraz irakurri: zio Sailkatuaren Legea hobetzeko and behartutako desagertzeak argitzeko eskatu du Foro Sozialak

The Permanent social forum described as “disappointing” the preliminary draft of the Classified tion Act because “it does not at all live up to the expectations that several victims of the GAL and of torture have with regard to access to these secret files”.

The spokespersons of the Permanent Social Forum, Agus Hernan and Nekane Altzelaiappeared at a press conference in San Sebastián, on the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearancein which he recalled that enforced disappearance “is a serious violation of human rights, enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations”.

While they complained, “no progress has been made in the seven documented cases of people who have disappeared in the Basque case, and who are still missing, at the hands of very diverse agents who have used violence.”

The Forum has referred to the cases of the three young people from A Coruña, who live in Irun, Jose Humberto Fouz Escobero, Jorge Juan Garcia Carneiro and Fernando Quiroga Veigadisappeared in 1973 between Biarritz and Donibane Lohitzune; Eduardo Moreno Bergaretxe ‘Pertur’disappeared in Behobia on July 23, 1976; Thomas Hernandezdisappeared on May 15, 1979 in Hendaye; Jose Miguel Etxeberria Alvarez ‘Naparra’, disappeared June 11, 1980; Y Jean-Louis Larredisappeared on 7 August 1983 in Léon (Landes).

Hernan has pointed out that “forced disappearance has been used in a total of 14 documented cases, as there have been seven other cases of people who have been forced to disappear and who have been located some time later,” including citing that of Joxean Lasa and Joxi Zabala.

Representatives of the Permanent Social Forum have reiterated that “many victims have said that the truth would be a healing element for their pain.” “They consider the right to know the truth as the core elementthe premise, what they mean by justice, what they really need,” she added.

For example, they lamented that, in the case of the victims of ETA, if there are “various tools that would give them access to the truth – to take one example, the Office of tion and Aid to Victims of Terrorism in the National Supreme Court – we cannot say the same in the case of the victims of the state”.

Hernan has pointed out that “In the case of the victims of the State, 38% of the cases are unresolved”. However, he assured that “there are aspects that currently offer some light at the end of the tunnel”, such as “the work being carried out by the Valuation Commission of Act 12/2016”, as “his high quality reports have enabled and acknowledged and recover 81 victims of the state and if we add to the 187 derived from the previous decree 107/2012, there are 268 victims who have already received recognition”.

“We must protect these victims and accompany them, to break the cloak of silence that has existed for decades,” they have defended from the Social Forum, suggesting to the Basque government that “in whatever manner it deems appropriate, would initiate a dynamic of social disclosure of the cases recognized by the assessment committee”, thereby “deconstructing the social perception that when one talks about victims, one thinks only of victims of ETA” .

With regard to the debate in the Congress of Deputies of the project of the law of classified information, they have described as: “disappointing” the draft because “it does not at all live up to the expectations that several victims of the GAL and of torture have with regard to access to these secret files”.

However, the spokespersons of the Social Forum understand that “according to the evaluations of the various parliamentary groups, there are sufficient conditions in the Congress of Deputies to work at the current stage of the debate on the law on an agreement that has as its sole principle access to the truth for the victims of serious human rights violations”.

“It is not fair or humane to deny victims the right to informationIn this sense, we are pleased with the dozens of allegations made by numerous and multiple actors of the Spanish state that will hopefully allow us to improve this design,” they confirmed.

In this sense, they are convinced that the “majority” of the parliamentary groups will work in the coming weeks to “agree on the necessary changes based on international law on non-discrimination between victims of human rights violations and on the aim that all victims have the right to truth, justice and reparation.”