Egiari Zor calls for a reform of the law on police abuse so that no victim is "excluded"

The Egiari Zor Foundation has asked the President of the Basque Parliament, Bakartxo Tejeria, to renew the law on victims of police abuse so that no one who has suffered such violations of human rights is "excluded" from the recognition and reparation measures.

The Egiari Zor group held a meeting with Tejeria on Wednesday to convey to them a series of demands for "recognition and reparation for all victims of state violence", a group they have denounced "has been waiting for official justice and recognition for decades."

In this regard, the Foundation criticizes the fact that "a number of thousands of people have been left without protection" outside the framework of the Basque Country standard. They consider that the deadlines set at the time "were insufficient for the numberof victims to be received ". They also regret that the enlargement of the legislation had a" limited and difficult journey ", which prevented the arrival of information in time for many victims to submit their application.

An "arbitrary" and incomplete time frame

On the other hand, Egiari Zor has described the time frame of the law (1979 to 1999) as "arbitrary" because it "excludes earlier cases and, above all, those that have occurred since 1999, affecting a thousand people."

They have also explained to the President of the House that some human rights violations are not included in the current text, such as those arising from the policy of dispersal or "indirect violence".

For all these reasons, they urge Tejeria to transfer to the parliamentary groups the "urgent need" to open a new official registration period. They call for a comprehensive reform that makes the rule a comprehensive mechanism to "finally overcome the asymmetry suffered by victims of state violence."

A "full" confession

Among the specific requests, the Foundation calls for an extension of the time frame for theregulation to cover all cases from 1960 to the present, as well as the inclusion of the recommendations of the Assessment Committee, which has already denounced the "shortcomings" of the current law.

According to data provided to Tejeria, while the deadline was open (2019 to 2021), a total of 711 applications were registered, 400 of which have been officially recognized in Álava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa.

However, Egiari Zor has compared this balance sheet with the report of the Basque Institute of Criminology (IVAC-KREI), which "documents more than 4,000 cases of torture alone". The association has reported that it has already received 500 applications after the deadline (which are being transmitted to the Basque Government every month), although they have ensured that "many more".

Finally, they warn that these requests will continue to be collected unofficially and "will not stop" until an effective law is reached to ensure that memory and what happened does not happen again.