In Spain, a judge can close down newspapers, jail journalists, arrest dissidents without a reason, and even earn the condemnation of the European courts for failing to investigate allegations of the torture of detainees. The same judge can prosecute dictators from all over the world, from Chile to Cambodia, and yet still be prosecuted for daring to investigate the crimes of the fascist Spanish regime in his own country, because it’s still illegal to do that.
Spain is a democracy but a huge archive of documents confiscated by the fascist regime from town councils, associations, and even individuals, was archived in the city of Salamanca while the legitimate owners of those documents had to fight through the courts for years to get them back. The Spanish democratic government refused for decades to dismantle the archive and return the papers.
After years of legal battles guided by a citizen movement called Comissió de la Dignitat, the papers started to be sent back. A few days ago, a new pack of documents arrived at Catalonia’s national archive, where the families involved were invited to come and receive their documents. The woman in the photograph –Teresa Rovira– waited for almost 70 years to recover family documents that have no other value than as a symbol of the dignity stolen from the dissidents, the ones who lost the battle against the fascists who overturned Spain’s democracy. She has waited for almost 70 years but her patience is now exhausted and, even though the Catalan minister of culture is giving a speech during the ceremony, it is the documents and the restoration of her family dignity that interests her most.
Published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2012
