Those known as the Caixabank Eight, all members of the Guadalajara PAH, have declared themselves judicially insubordinate because they understand that their case responds to an orchestrated operation by the judiciary to repress activists. These eight people face up to three and a half years in prison for events that occurred in a Caixabank branch on December 5, 2017. The oral hearing of the trial is scheduled for February 10 and 12, 2025, to which None of them will come.
Ivalú Fuica is the spokesperson for those affected and remembers what happened that day, the eve of Constitution Day seven years ago: “They were going to evict a colleague from Cabanillas who had found herself in the need to occupy an empty home this year. bank, with minors in their care. The bank had told her that it would not do so until she had a housing alternative, but they did not confirm it in writing, so we went to the branch to accompany her and negotiate, as the PAH used to do,” she begins her story.
That real estate uprising, which was finally carried out without the family being able to go to another place to shelter from the winter cold, ended with the arrest of the woman who was going to be evicted along with seven activists. “We were there without altering anything. The workers were able to continue carrying out their duties normally, and closing time arrived, and we refused to leave until we could negotiate with the person in charge,” Fuica continues to explain.
His wishes came to nothing. Soon, the Civil Guard arrived at the establishment. The activists carried out the passive resistance that usually characterizes the PAH and sat back. Finally, eight of them left through the door of the branch handcuffed and detained, taken to the Benemérita barracks in that Guadalajara town. “There was an arrest without reading the rights and without communicating the reason for the arrest,” denounces Anastasia Liedo, one of the defendants.
She emphasizes that “a crime of breaking into a public establishment does not entail arrest, so they had to justify it later and when we were at the barracks they added other crimes.” Liedo still remembers with some surprise what happened that day of protest. “It was a completely common practice in the PAH, and always peaceful, I don’t know why they wanted to arrest us that day,” he says.
Against the Prosecutor’s Office
Then the first court summonses arrived. After what is considered in law as an undue delay in the timing of the procedure, as pointed out by Francisco García, lawyer in the case, all of them have ended up accused of various crimes.
On the one hand, Caixabank, “manifestly exaggerated” according to the lawyer, accuses them of crimes of trespassing of a public establishment, coercion, resistance to law enforcement officials and public disorder. For this reason, they ask for a sentence of three and a half years in prison. The Prosecutor’s Office, for its part, charges them with crimes of resistance, disobedience and a minor crime of trespass. For the first two, they ask for a sentence of 10 months in prison, for the last, a two-month fine with a daily fee of 10 euros.
In this sense, Liedo, the accused, states that this case should never have been admitted for processing. “I already know that the Prosecutor’s Office asks for less and that we would not go to prison, but I am innocent and I am not going to accept any sentence. They do it so that we do not exercise our freedom of expression,” he complains. Furthermore, he calls the position of the Public Ministry “even more serious”: “It is supposed to defend the interests of the State, among which should be freedom of expression and the right to protest. “It is not better for asking us for fewer months in prison.”
They will defend their innocence
García, the defender, believes that these types of court cases are “a warning to sailors, so that people resign themselves to being evicted in a submissive manner.” He assures that he will defend the innocence of all his clients: “We consider that none of them acted as the private prosecution and the Prosecutor’s Office consider,” he reiterates.
Liedo maintains that “according to the statements of the civil guards there was no type of resistance, and the office workers said that there was no type of coercion either, so there is no way to build the case.”
Likewise, the lawyer highlights what he calls “irregularities” in the procedure. It refers, for example, to the loss by the banking entity of the security recordings of what happened that day. “They say they don’t exist, that they have lost them. I say that, if there are people who have committed crimes against you in the way you say, the first thing you do is preserve the evidence,” García emphasizes.
Towards insubordination, a political protest
At this point, the eight from Caixabank have declared themselves judicially insubordinate. “There is a tradition in the Spanish State, and in the entire world, related to civil disobedience, that is, refusing to comply with a rule for ethical reasons or principles,” the lawyer introduces. In this case, all those affected have expressed “zero confidence in the Administration of Justice” as they understand that “it acts as a kind of defender of the interests of Caixabank and not of the public good,” in the words of the defender.
Liedo believes that “the abuses that we have seen on the part of the justice system have created an incredible discredit towards it,” and illustrates his motivations with what happened to those known as the Zaragoza six and the Swiss six, or the siege they suffer. the Andalusian Workers Union through numerous and large financial fines. On a personal level, he thinks that “it is a trial against activism, not against eight PAH activists.”
Not going to court on February 10 and 12 represents a form of political protest for activists. “I will go, and so will the witnesses,” says García, the lawyer. In this sense, several possibilities open up. According to the Criminal Procedure Law, if a request exceeds two years in prison, the hearing cannot be held in the absence of the accused, but the Prosecutor’s request is less. “Caixabank can reduce its request prior to the trial, and it would be held. If he does not do so, the judge could suspend the hearing, but also search and arrest my clients,” adds the lawyer.
This would mean the possibility of arresting the eight from Caixabank and placing them in provisional prison until the oral hearing was held. “We are going to communicate where we are at all times, surely in the concentration that we call on those days of the trial, but we will not collaborate,” says Liedo.
Prepared for what comes
“We want to take one more step, a kind of order that points out these absurd causes solely aimed at scaring people so that they do not protest and defend their rights,” exclaims Liedo, who affirms that the only people who do not know about the trance due to What is happening is her parents: “I am prepared for whatever comes. My children, ages 17 and 19, are very proud of me, so we will continue fighting as long as we can,” he concludes.
#Caixabank #declare #judicially #insubordinate #trial #activism
