After the closing of the blogs “Freedom
for Josué” and “Josué Libertad” some persons have written us to know about the
current situation of Josué Estebanez, the Spanish Army soldier condemned for
defending his life against a horde of antifascists in Madrid’s underground. We
take this opportunity also to recapitulate about his situation during these
years, and his actual situation.
Last 11th of February Josué
reached 5 years and 3 months without liberty. After the incident in the Metro station
of Legazpi the 11th of November 2007, where one antifascist was
killed and other severely injured, he was sent to the Military Prison of Alcalá
Meco, on remand without bail until the trial.
When his contract with the Army finished,
he was moved to the Penitentiary Centre of “Madrid II”, also in Alcalá Meco
city. In this prison together with a comrade that was there, started to prepare
the Access Exam to University, and while he was in this prison the trial took
place, in September of 2009, and the sentence to 26 years of prison was
published on October of 2009.
In January 2010, with nocturnally,
premeditation and without previous notification, he was moved to the
Penitentiary Centre of "Puerto de Santa Maria III" in Cádiz, in the
south of Spain, the prison in Spanish peninsular territory more distant to the
place of residence of his family, in the north of Spain. After that, the
functionaries said that it was an “error”, but the truth is that they did not
allow him to take his study books neither the entirety of his belongings from
his cell, and was his comrade and friend who had to recover them before they
throw it to the trash, to send these things afterwards to his family.
In the Penitentiary Centre of
"Puerto de Santa Maria III" the functionaries applied the FIES regime
more severely than in the “Madrid II” prison. The FIES (File for Special
Monitoring Inmates) is a special regime classification for specific inmates
that restrict the things they can do inside prison and their contacts with the
world outside. There are five categories, and in one of them are included the
persons that had committed “crimes of racist or xenophobic character”. For
Josué this supposed that he could be arbitrarily moved from his cell, gallery
or module when the functionaries thought that he had made friendship with other
inmate, what difficult his normal relation inside the prison and tried to
influence him psychologically. Apart from that he had also restriction in the
letters he could send and receive each week, with the aim of isolating him from
outside.
In April 2010 the Supreme Court examined
the appeal presented by the Defence, and confirmed the sentenced of the
Regional Court of Madrid.
After the arbitrary transfer to Cadiz
prison, Josué requested the transfer to the Penitentiary Centre of “El Dueso”,
in Cantabria, in the north of Spain, to be closer to the place where his family
lives, but in November of 2010 he was moved to a Penitentiary Centre in
Asturias, also in the north of Spain, but at distance of 3 hours by car from
his family house.
In this Penitentiary Centre is where he
actually is. In that centre the situation in relation to conflicts between
inmates, overcrowding or small drug dealing is less conflictive than in a
normal prison with normal inmates, as this is some kind of experimental prison
focused in rehabilitation. In this prison they had their own internal rules
that are different from other prisons, what for example means that is forbidden
for the inmates to have contacts with persons of the “marginal or delinquent
sphere” by letter, by telephone or in their personal visits, and this for Josué
has been extended to persons of the “political sphere”. Due to this he
can not have correspondence with persons that are not from his family, neither
having political books in his cell, even if the political content is minimum,
neither music from patriotic groups. The breaching of these internal laws could
lead to the expulsion from this centre and his transfer to another one.
For this reason, Josué actually can only
contact and receive visits from his family. He has intention to restart the
preparation of the exams to access to the university so that in the future he
could study a university career trough the UNED (National Open University of Studies)
The expenses related to the legal defence
had already been paid; expect the presentation of an appeal to the European
Court of Human Rights that the family and lawyer are studying.
As he has no income, Josué depends on
what his family deposits on his “pecolium account”. As you can imagine, the
food inside a prison is not the better neither abundant, therefore is necessary
to complement it with the alimentary products sold in the prison shop, were can
be bought also basic hygiene products. Other of the common expenses are the
telephonic cards to call to mobile phones and land lines. In general, the
maximum amount that can be spend of this account each month are 260 euros, that
only the food and telephonic cards takes a good part of this amount.
For this reason are very important the
campaigns like the Lottery participations or other that have been made in order
to try to raise funds, with the aim that the cover of these expenses inside
prison would not suppose an economical charge for his family.
POW
Spain
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