While claiming claims for the housing crisis in different parts of Spain, the courts of Seville had planned to host the principle of the outcome of facts that date back seven years ago. ‘The 18 of La Macarena’as they are known, they face collective penalties of up to 77 years in prison for alleged crimes of violent usurpation attempted, damage, attack on the agent of the authority, injuries, public disorders and labor abuse. This Friday has transpired that the trial has finally been suspended, without a date communicated for the new celebration, they report sources in the case.
The oral view was already postponed last summer and adds seven years of waiting because the events occurred on February 16, 2018. That day, six people were arrested and they remained two months in preventive detention. When leaving, two young activists said: “That they put two months in pretrial detention for occupying a home is a shame.” Social and activist movements had summoned a concentration of support this Monday at 9.00 on Avenida de la Buhaira, together with the courts, which logically has also been postponed.
But what happened that day? According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the now accused took Contains in the building “With the intention of occupying the different homes, causing numerous damage in the attempt to violate the access doors.”
Then, always according to the Prosecutor’s Office, “a police endowment composed of several agents, who despite identifying as such were violently beaten by the accused referred and also outside the building.” The Prosecutor’s Office says that the group was “concentrated in that place hindering the street, all with a violent and aggressive attitude to the occupation of the building, issuing proclamations to great voices, interrupting the traffic of people and vehicles.”
Add the public prosecutor’s story that “the group was taught in relation to the aggressions to the agents for an accused Algerian subject of ignored situation in Spain and without a criminal record.”
“They put us against the wall”
The defenses have been considering that the prosecutor’s accusation “seems taken from a horror book.” “He makes a story based only on the version of the housing promoter and police officers who, by the way, some are owners of those homes, so that his story should be at least in question. It is a fantastic story in which it recounts episodes of alleged violence that have not even been demonstrated indicated, ”they said at the time.
The version of the defendants, as they have been defending for years, is that “penalties are requested to their maximum degree, totally disproportionate and exemplifiers, and with a clear message of criminalization to the movement in favor of decent housing in Seville. The accusation brief is forgotten that these people were mostly homeless people and young students supported by organizations in defense of human rights that wanted to make visible the serious housing problem that exists in the city ”.
The defendants who went through preventive detention narrated, already in May 2018, some facts that contrast with the version of the Prosecutor’s Office. According to them, the police officers “came very violent, glued blows because yes”, and that the “blows and punches” came from the police, “not as the judge says.” “We were not doing anything, they loaded against us and put us against the wall.”
‘The 18 of La Macarena’ and popular support
The preventive detention to which the six detainees had to submitted the reaction of participation Seville, United Left and Podemos Andalucía, who described as “disproportionate measured” the judge’s decision and requested the release of the accused. In addition, the University of Seville requested the release of one of the young people so that he could continue with the degree in social anthropology he studied.
It is also The Astarios Farsto Platform responsewhich has convened “concentrations of solidarity to demand justice” in front of the courts of the Buahira, on February 17 and 18 at 9 a.m. In the statement of the call, the platform expresses that “it is considered unacceptable that those who fight for the right to housing are persecuted judicially, while the true responsible for the housing crisis – due tools, vulture funds and real estate speculators – remain unpunished” . They end with: “Absolution already for the 18 of the Macarena! No to the criminalization of social struggle! Measures against the housing crisis, no repression! ”
Besides, ‘The 18 of La Macarena’ opened a fundraising Through the Gofundme platform under the title ‘Your solidarity, our freedom!’, which has raised more than 10,000 euros in more than a hundred donations. On this website they close the description of the case with a “Enough of repression! Fighting for the right to housing is not a crime! ”
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