A demonstrator holds a banner during a gathering in support of
Judge Baltasar Garzón in front of the High Court in Madrid on April 15, 2010.
Masses Rally to Support Spain’s Garzón
April 29, 2010, HRW
On Saturday, 60,000 people marched through the streets of Madrid- as many others did in cities around Spain and the world-to call for justice for Franco-era atrocities and for a halt to criminal proceedings against Judge Baltasar Garzón, who had been trying to investigate those abuses.
At the rally to end the march, Human Rights Watch´s Reed Brody was the featured speaker.
A demonstrator holds a banner during a gathering in support of
Judge Baltasar Garzón in front of the High Court in Madrid on April 15, 2010.
The march, and the movement behind it, was triggered by a criminal investigation against Judge Garzón for looking into alleged cases of illegal detention and enforced disappearances of more than 100,000 victims between 1936 and 1952. Spanish courts had routinely closed investigations into those abuses by invoking a 1977 amnesty law.
The case against Garzón is based in part on the argument that the he refused to apply the amnesty law to crimes against humanity.
Brody told the crowd that Garzon´s work-beginning with the indictment of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for human rights violations-was instrumental in bringing justice to countries around the world, particularly in Latin America, where amnesties were overturned.
It was hypocritical, Brody said, that Spain refused to apply at home the same principles its judiciary had so successfully promoted internationally. "Why should Franco´s victims have fewer rights than Pinochet´s?" he said.
