The undersigning individuals and entities EXPRESS:
That next February 14 a trial against three communist militants is scheduled in the city of Barcelona. These people are Juanjo Serrano (member of PCPE-PCPC), Xavier Aure (member of the CJC-JCPC) and Albert Camarasa (member of the CJC-JCPC).
The prosecution demands three years and ten months of imprisonment for each of them. The prosecution bases its request on the events happened in Barcelona on November 14, 2007, during the demonstration to protest for the murder of a young anti-fascist in Madrid the previous day 11.
This accusation is a police set - and supported on rigged evidence without any consistency - to try to demobilize the communist organization in this country and other anticapitalist organizations operating within the antifascist movement.
The facts giving rise to this show police are:
The facts that led to this farce are the following:
On 11th November 2007 the young antifascist Carlos Palomino was murdered in the Madrid underground at the hands of a 23 year old fascist - a professional soldier of the Spanish army - which was heading for a rally of the fascist party National Democracy. Immediately after this event, rallies and protests to condemn and protest this fascist murder take place in different Spanish cities, also in Barcelona.
The state of indignation among the anti-fascist demonstrators is proportional to the brutality of the murder and the misrepresentation of information that the sytem mass media execute by presenting the fact with the familiar and interested rhetoric of "clash between antisystem youth groups".
On 14th November in Barcelona, several anti-fascist groups and organizations convened a demonstration, where from the first moment it is clear that the police - Autonomous Police (directed by the Minister Saura ICV-EUiA - Catalan partners of United Left and the PCE -) were instructed to not leave it peacefully discourse. The operation did not have any proportionality with the protest: police take of the center of Barcelona with the anti-riot forces ready to charge, intimidation in the subway to those attending the demonstration, ambulances prepared as if it were a theater of war, threat of charging against the head of the demonstration as it was starting to march, etc.
During the demonstration there were several attempts from the police to cut the demonstration at various points, thereby increasing nervousness and outrage of the demonstrators. This situation worsened during the march, and after having marched only 400 meters there was a brutal police charge that brought an unjustifiable situation of social unrest to the heart of Barcelona as the repression was extended to the commercial area of Passeig de Gracia and ultimately affected bystanders.
As a result of the police charge there were several injured who had to be evacuated by ambulance. There were also 5 arrests, including two comrades from the CJC-JCPC, which were taken to the police headquarters of the Autonomous Police in Barcelona; since one of the detainees was a minor at the time, police had no choice but to notify the family of his detention, if not both they would have been at least 48 hours without external communication.
Immediately, leaders of the PCPC-PCPE and CJC-JCPC, accompanied by a lawyer, presented themselves at the police station along with the parents of the detainees. At that time they were required to be identified and, after a long wait at the station, a policeman called a comrade of PCPC-PCPE and two comrades from the CJC-JCPC, informing them that they had been recognized for their role in the demonstration and had been reported by the police. A real police set-up - as our Party member could not participate in the demonstration because of work reasons - led to criminalize the communist militancy and the struggle against fascism.
In the following days the prosecution settled the report:
- Open a case against three members of PCPC-PCPE and the CJC-JCPC (one of those arrested and two of the defendants in the police station), which are accused "of a crime of assault and a crime of public disorder", by allegedly mounting a barricade with trash bins and throwing stones at the police. The prosecution demands "3 years and 10 months in prison and the disqualification for the exercise of the right to stand in elections." The minors' record is filed, since the juvenile court sees no evidence of crime. To support this claim the prosecution presented as evidence only the testimony of the police, there being no other evidence of the occurrence of the above events.
For all these reasons we DEMAND:
The dismissal of the trial and the withdrawal of all charges against the three militants.
The declaration of nullity of all proceedings and the conduction of an investigation to purge all liabilities arising out of this manipulated action of police.
That this letter be transmitted to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
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