The crime of glorifying terrorism has returned to the National Court. Twelve years after the end of ETA, the organization around which this crime revolved, a complaint by Vox against two Palestinian activists has led to their charges for the content of their respective interventions in an appearance organized by Podemos in the Congress of Deputies. The resolution that issued her indictment highlights that one of the appearing parties called the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 and 8, 2023, which resulted in 1,261 deaths and the kidnapping of another 251 people, as a “brave initiative.”
“The events that took place on the aforementioned dates have been unequivocally classified as acts of terrorism, both by the authorities of the European Union and by the national authorities,” argued Judge Joaquín Gadea before leaving the Central Court of Instruction number 6. The defenses respond that it is the United Nations itself that recognizes the armed actions in Palestine and Israel as part of “an armed conflict in which there are several parties” involved.
On June 3, Podemos organized a parliamentary day to address the situation in Palestine from a historical and human rights perspective. Two of the guests, Jaldia Abubakra and Miriam Ojeda, are the activists that Vox pointed out in its complaint and that the then Gadea, judge supporting Manuel García Castellón at the time of his accusation, agreed to investigate.
The far-right party selects some of the guests’ statements. From Jaldia Abubakra – founder of the Al-Karama Palestinian Women’s Movement, the party highlights: “The brave initiative of the Palestinian resistance on October 7 has put the Palestinian issue back on the political and media agenda.”
To charge the activists, Judge Gadea resorted to a statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, on the occasion of October 7, in the sense that Spain condemns the “terrorism” of Hamas from the first moment. Furthermore, to defend the jurisdiction of the National Court to investigate, the magistrate highlighted that two of the people who died in the attacks had Spanish nationality.
Jaldia Abubakra’s defense refutes the major one. He assures that Vox makes an interested interpretation of the words of its client. First of all, lawyer Antonio Segura alleges that what Abubakra does is frame the October 7 attacks in a previous armed strategy. In this sense, his client said that this strategy led that day to a “humiliating resistance operation, a great political and military victory for Palestine.”
In his own intervention, Abubakra outlined what later became his defense strategy: “We have international legislation that gives permission to colonized peoples to resist through all possible means, including armed struggle.” In this sense, Abubakra’s lawyer adds: “We do not see here any glorification of Hamas or any other terrorist organization. And if we saw it, we would have to buy the thesis that the United Nations glorifies terrorism, a thesis that only the Government of Israel defends.”
The defense resorts to resolution 3070, issued in 1973 and relating to the “self-determination of peoples” and the “rapid granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples.” “That this did not begin on October 7 would seem obvious, as well as necessary to contextualize the Israel-Palestine armed conflict. It is true that those who try to criminalize all those who support the struggle of the Palestinian people try to decontextualize the conflict and focus on it only on October 7, in a part story, as a single act that is not part of a conflict that extends from dozens of years ago,” the defense summarizes in a letter in which it has just requested that the proceedings be archived.
Amnesty International calls for the archive
The two defendants gave statements on October 29. A small rally organized by Amnesty International took place in front of the National Court headquarters. “None of the statements for which these two activists are being investigated can be considered incitement to hatred or direct incitement to violence,” states the non-governmental organization.
Amnesty International requests that the case be archived and expresses its “concern over the broad and vague definition of the crime of glorification of terrorism in the Spanish Penal Code, which allows the State to criminalize expressions that are protected by international human rights standards.”
In its complaint, Vox highlighted other expressions made during the aforementioned appearances in Congress. “From the first moment the media began to bombard us with the idea that this is a terrorist attack, that babies have been decapitated, women have been raped, and, thanks to time, it has been shown that this is false, that it is propaganda, that all Zionist propaganda has fallen to the ground,” states the complaint against Abubakra.
Of the two activists, Vox only focuses on one of the statements made by Miriam Ojeda, president of the Samidoum Network: “One of the things that we do have to thank [al 7 de octubre] “It is putting the Palestinian question at the center.”
Before Judge María Tardón – now the head of the case – Ojeda said that it was a mere analysis according to which, despite the increase in “murders and imprisonment of Palestinians without guarantees”, the conflict and its consequences for the civilian population had disappeared from the media, legal sources explain. Ojeada added that after the October 7 attacks, the situation of the Palestinians was discussed again and that his statement was made without justification or glorification of terrorism, nor humiliation of the victims. Like Abubakra, Miriam Ojeda’s defense highlights that none of them mentioned Hamas in their interventions in Congress. Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in response to the October 7 attacks.
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