Dani was among the people from Madrid (the capital city of Spain) who took the streets in October 16th 2019 to protest against the unfair judicial sentence that sent Catalan activists and politicians to jail for being pro-independence.

While the protests in Catalonia were being brutally repressed by police, in Madrid the police beat those Spanish people who had dared to stand with the Catalan people too. In Madrid they arrested 4 people, and 3 of them were freed after what they described as "humiliations from the police, mockery, commentaries and veiled threats", but Dani was not released.

Dani was arrested and accused of having hit a policeman with a wooden stick. However, the medical report presented by the police was signed two hours before this supposedly happened and in a different place. Even though Dani doesn't have any criminal record and there are no proofs nor witnesses of what the police accuse him of, he has been in preventive jail for 7 months and now the Prosecution Ministry of the Spanish government is now asking for 6 years of jail and a fine of 3000€.

SOLIDARITY WITH CATALONIA SHOULD NOT BE A CRIME!

Our eternal gratitude is with those who have taken a stand in favour of our fight for freedom and against the political persecution of Catalan independentists, the police brutality against Catalan protestors and the arbitrary imprisonment of Catalan activists and protestors.

Dani was arbitrarily taken as a collective punishment, an example to show that the Spanish police are ready to go after, not only Catalans themselves, but also anyone who gives us their support.

Assumingthat a punishment is ‘less brutal’ is a very dangerous thing todo when we’re talking about torture.

It’sthe kind of language that naturally drifts towards justifying orexcusing certain torture techniques and downplaying the damage theydo.

Mostoften the reason a punishment is judged ‘less brutal’ or ‘lesspainful’ has nothing to do with pain or damage. It usually comesdown to how likely the technique is to leave physical marks on thevictim. We judge scarring torture techniques as ‘worse’ as ‘morepainful’ ‘more brutal’ ‘more damaging’.

Thisisn’t true. Andit’s exactly what you’re doing here.

You’vearbitrarily decided that one form of beating is more excusablebecause it’s less likely to leave a lasting mark on the victim’sskin.

Aperson can be beaten to deathwithout any obvious outward marks.

Thisway of looking at torture isactively harmful to torture victims. It excuses certain techniquesand contributes to the idea that some tortures are ‘better’ orthat some survivors are less ‘damaged’ and less worthy of ourhelp/support.

HonestlyI think that if you have trouble empathising with a torture survivorcharacter and find it difficult to appreciate the amount of painthat’s been inflicted on them- then you need to seriously questionwhy you’re writing torture.

Thisscenario generally seems to be underestimating the amount of stressthe victim character is under. You’re characterising a group ofpeople that are holding the victim against their will as ‘kind’.And as far as I can see you’re doing that because this group haschosen to meet the character’s basic and immediate needs forsurvival.

Holdingsomeone against their will is not kind.

Physicallyabusing someone when they attempt to escape from an abusive situationis not kind.

Thinkabout why you areapproaching the scenario in this way.

Thinkabout what physical abuse is actually adding to this situation andthis story.

Thinkabout why you are invested in the idea that the guard is a goodperson and that their actions are excusable.

Letme try and put this another way. If the guard was instead a parentwould this situation still seem excusable to you? If the characterwas not state-sanctioned in their actions but was instead doing thisto a family member would you be comfortable saying the situation isnot abuse?

Wouldyou be comfortable with the idea of a parent arbitrarily decidingtheir adult child can not leave the house, physically restraining andbeating them when they disobey?

Thereal life situations your scenario is reminding me of are highlyabusive and extremely damaging to the victims. What’s coming tomind for me is the wide scale abuse of women and girls in Saudi orAfghanistan and arbitrary house arrest in China.

Arethese really situations you wish to justify or excuse?

Isuggest you give serious thought to what all this abuse is adding toyour story, whetheryou are portraying the effect on the victim in a realistic manner andwhether it is actually necessary to narrative.

Ifyou decide the incident is necessary to the narrative then I stronglyrecommend you do not down play or excuse the damage that is beinginflicted on the victim. Otherwise you are writing torture apologia.

Ifyou don’t think the incident is necessary to the narrative or areunsure then I’d suggest removing it from the story.

Tortureis real. Arbitrary detention is real.

Theexperiences of survivors are real.

Here’sa case I was reading about last night.

Hername is Guligeina Tashimaimaiti. She’s 31. She had just finished aMasters degree and had her application for a PhD accepted. She is anethnic Uighur from China.

Shevanished in February, along with most of her family.

Thereis no evidence or proof as to where she is or what is happening toher. 

But let’s talk balance of probabilities for a moment: she hasalmost certainly been detained without charge by China for no otherreason then her ethnicity and her intelligence. She is probably beingtortured. It is unlikely that she will ever be able to return to heruniversity and finish her degree. In fact I’d say it’s unlikelyshe’ll be seen alive again.

Orhow about Gulchehra Hoja’s family? Her elderly mother andfather were both detained because of their daughter’s radio showand are both under house arrest.

Doyou think this is kindness?

Takea look at Amnesty International’s website. Their advanced searchengine allows you to take a look at cases of arbitrary detention andhouse arrest across the globe over a period of decades.

Readthem.

Thinkabout what the survivors say, when they survived. Consider how youwant to portray this scenario. Consider if this is really a scenarioyou want to portray.

(25th October 2019)

12th consecutive day of protests in Catalonia against the imprisonment of 9 more Catalan activists and democratically elected politicians, and against Spain's repression of Catalonia.

Many universities have been on strike for a week. This is the sign that hangs on the doors of UPC university: "Andrea is 21 years old and studies in the UPC. Today she cannot go to uni because she's in jail. And you, will you do nothing [about it]?"

Andrea is a girl from Sabadell (Catalonia) and one of the 40,000 people who demonstrated in front of the delegation of the Spanish government in Barcelona the day after the jail sentence to the 9 Catalan leaders was released. She went there with 5 friends, but only 4 came home that night. Andrea was arrested, as well as other protesters, but was one of the 4 protestors who were not released. She was sent to jail with 3 more protestors arrested that night there.

Andrea's friends explain (here) that they didn't even go to the front of the protest. They stayed in the back, next to a wall, because there was so many people they couldn't move. The demonstration was peaceful. People were shouting, angry for what had happened, but did not throw nor burn anything. At one point, the police charged against the protestors and they got separated. The policemen grabbed Andrea, dragged her on the floor, and stepped on her head against the floor. Her friends didn't see her again.

Spain, as usual, uses the technique of arbitrary detention. They cannot jail the 40,000 people who were protesting there that night (and not committing any crime), but they can arrest random people with the intention to create fear among everyone so they won't attend any more protests, since you could get arrested just for being there even if you did nothing wrong.

She is imprisoned in the Wad Ras jail (in Barcelona) for the crimes of public disorder and attempting against authority. If you want to write to her, her friends set up the email [email protected] and they promised to print the letters and give them to her lawyer so he can bring them to her in jail.

On 4 July, Nyo Myint and Enrique Arias Hierro were deported from a US military base in Djibouti to Juba, South Sudan, as part of the United States government’s mass deportation campaign and have since been arbitrarily detained in an undisclosed location. While credible reports say that they are in the custody of the National Security Service, no official information regarding the two men’s exact current whereabouts has been shared with their lawyers. Amnesty International calls on the South Sudanese authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of Nyo Myint and Enrique Arias Hierro, grant them consistent and unmonitored access to their legal representatives, including local counsel, and immediately clarify the legal grounds of their detention.