End incommunicado detention in Spain
Spain has one of the strictest detention regimes in the European Union
Spanish law allows terrorism suspects to be held incommunicado for up to 13 days. Incommunicado detainees have no effective access to a lawyer or to a doctor of their choice. Their family is not informed that they have been detained.
Many detainees held incommunicado report that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated. The authorities rarely investigate their allegations.
Mohammed Fahsi was arrested near Barcelona in 2006 on suspicion of terrorism-related offences. He was held incommunicado for four days, during which time his family had no idea where he was.
Mohammed Fahsi says he was blindfolded at all times and insulted and threatened by Civil Guard officers. He said that while in his cell he was forced to remain standing with his hands on the wall, or to do press-ups to the point of exhaustion. Every time he tried to sit down a Civil Guard officer would make him stand again and he says he was subjected to sleep-deprivation techniques.
During interrogations, he was told his wife and children would be sent out to the desert in Morocco and he would never see them again. A state-appointed lawyer arrived to represent Mohammed Fahsi just before he was taken to court, but he was not allowed to speak to his client. A doctor examined him but did not follow up on his claims that he was being tortured.
More than three years later, Mohammed Fahsi remains in detention awaiting trial. His complaints of torture were never investigated.
www.amnesty.de
www.amnesty.org
Spanish law allows terrorism suspects to be held incommunicado for up to 13 days. Incommunicado detainees have no effective access to a lawyer or to a doctor of their choice. Their family is not informed that they have been detained.
Many detainees held incommunicado report that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated. The authorities rarely investigate their allegations.
Mohammed Fahsi was arrested near Barcelona in 2006 on suspicion of terrorism-related offences. He was held incommunicado for four days, during which time his family had no idea where he was.
Mohammed Fahsi says he was blindfolded at all times and insulted and threatened by Civil Guard officers. He said that while in his cell he was forced to remain standing with his hands on the wall, or to do press-ups to the point of exhaustion. Every time he tried to sit down a Civil Guard officer would make him stand again and he says he was subjected to sleep-deprivation techniques.
During interrogations, he was told his wife and children would be sent out to the desert in Morocco and he would never see them again. A state-appointed lawyer arrived to represent Mohammed Fahsi just before he was taken to court, but he was not allowed to speak to his client. A doctor examined him but did not follow up on his claims that he was being tortured.
More than three years later, Mohammed Fahsi remains in detention awaiting trial. His complaints of torture were never investigated.
www.amnesty.de
www.amnesty.org
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