Blanca Serra’s activist will be the first person to testify, this Monday, May 19, before the prosecutor’s office for democratic memory and human rights at the Justice City of Barcelona for the alleged torture suffered during Franco’s regime and the transition at the Via Laietana headquarters, reports cultural òmnium in a statement.
The complaint, recently admitted by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office, was filed by the Iridia center for the defense of human rights, with the support of Òmnium Cultural and the World Organization Against Torture (OMC).
The complaint details 4 episodes of torture and detentions, all of which occurred between 1977 and 1982, towards both her and her sister Eva Serra-Alrewer, at the superior headquarters of Via Laietana in Barcelona and at the General Directorate of Security in Madrid.
At a press conference in April, Irídia’s lawyer, Brian Ventura, representing Serra, said that the sisters «suffered specific gender tortures, in addition to physical pain, abuse, humiliations, vexations, denigrations, and objectification simply for being women, militants, dissidents, and transgressors.»
Òmnium recalls that the admission of this complaint implies «a historic precedent» and opens the door to an investigation process that must include access to police archives, the identification of those responsible, and the reparation of the victims, as memorial entities and in defense of the claim of human rights.
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