The number of people who have benefited from Spain's amnesty for crimes related to the Catalan independence process has gradually risen in the weeks since the law came into force. This Tuesday, the official balance had reached 73 people who have benefited from the law, of whom the vast majority are Spanish policemen who on October 1st, 2017, took part in the repressive actions to stop the independence referendum. While so far only 27 pro-independence supporters have been granted an amnesty, the judiciary has already granted an amnesty to the 46 police officers who were awaiting trial due to the evidence that they used excessive violence at polling stations in their attempt to stop Catalans voting on whether their land would become a new independent state.
After Barcelona's Court No. 7 agreed on the acquittal of the 46 police officers this Tuesday, the total beneficiaries of the amnesty law - which came into force on June 10th - is already approaching a hundred. Those granted amnesty this Tuesday, reports the Europa Press agency, were officers of the Spanish National Police who were being investigated for the brutal police reactions that many voters experienced themselves at the polling stations in the city of Barcelona.
Human rights organizations protest
The application of the amnesty to the police was not well received by organizations such as Irídia, Òmnium Cultural and even Amnesty International. All of these groups have expressed their disagreement with judges having decided that the amnesty could be applied to them. Judge Francisco Miralles, on the other hand, considered that they were eligible to be amnestied because "the actions investigated were of short individual duration" and were framed "within a defined police objective" that did not extend over time "beyond the the same police manoeuvre at the entrance and exit of the different polling stations". The investigating judge of the case also determined that the actions investigated were not serious enough to exclude them from the amnesty, which cannot be applied to crimes of injury punishable by more than five years in prison, nor crimes of torture or degrading treatment.
The police amnesty has caused a big jump in the total balance of those who have benefited from the law which, until this Tuesday, was still stuck on the figure of 27 beneficiaries. On June 25th, the Catalan High Court granted an amnesty to the former interior minister, Miquel Buch, and the security escort of the president-in-exile, Carles Puigdemont, Lluís Escolà.
Also having benefited from the amnesty are 25 independence supporters who had been convicted of a range of crimes: assault against authorities (such as police) during protests, minor crimes of injury during demonstrations. Those who had been acquitted in the courts of the crimes of public disorder have also seen their criminal record, including the police record, cancelled. Not a full month has yet gone by since the amnesty law came into effect, but the number of real beneficiaries so far, 73, is still far from the 500 that according to the prosecutor general's office estimated could benefit from it.