By Tito Drago
MADRID, Aug 18 2001 (IPS)

The Spanish central government’s chief delegate in the autonomous community of Catalonia will be taken to court by local trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in connection with a case of alleged police brutality involving 200 immigrants, activists announced Friday.

The trade unionists and members of NGOs said they would file a lawsuit against the government’s delegate, Julia García Valdecasas, for abuse of authority and disproportionate use of force against African immigrants.

The suit is in response to a crackdown by the national police Thursday against immigrants camped out in a city square in Barcelona, the capital of the northeastern region of Catalonia, on Spain’s Mediterranean seaboard.

For the past few weeks the immigrants, most of whom are from the North African country of Morocco and the West African country of Sierra Leone, have been seeking permission to live and work in Spain.

The immigrants, who have the backing of human rights groups and other NGOs, as well as leftist parties, initially camped out in Barcelona’s Plaza de Cataluña, from which they were evicted on Aug 7. They then moved to the Plaza André Malraux.

But 100 police officers arrived at the Plaza André Malraux in 30 vans Thursday, circled the immigrants, and began to advance. Spanish activists attempted to form a human chain around the immigrants to protect them.

But the police charged the activists and immigrants, waving their batons, upon receiving an order by radio: “catch as many of them as you can!”

Of the 116 immigrants taken into police custody, the few who had their documents in order were released. On Friday, 91 remained in jail, and the Spanish government said it intended to deport them shortly.

The police operation coincided with the start of a press conference in the Catalonian headquarters of the Spanish central trade union Comisiones Obreras, the purpose of which was to report that the Red Cross would provide the immigrants with lodging.

Labour activists said the police chose that moment to act in order to make sure the leaders of the immigrants as well as the heads of concerned political parties, trade unions and NGOs were not present.

“This is pure fascism,” charged Eva Sánchez, the head of the Confederación General de Trabajadores, a leftist trade union with a strong presence in Catalonia, and a member of the Citizen Platform umbrella grouping that has been defending the immigrants.

Two of Sánchez’s fellow trade unionists, Santiago de la Fuente and Juan Carlos Ahumada, were arrested trying to protect the immigrants from police brutality.

The Unión General de Trabajadores, a central trade union with ties to the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), is one of the groups that plans to file the suit against García Valdecasas for abuse of authority, disproportionate use of force, and aggravated and premeditated violence.

David Bonet, the second highest-ranking official in the Spanish government’s delegation in Catalonia, said the police action ordered by his office was merely part of an attempt to enforce Spain’s new Law on Aliens.

That law stipulates that no immigrant who has entered Spain since Jan 1 can regularise their situation if they do not have a visa issued by a Spanish consulate and a promise of a work contract.

The immigrants who were able to escape the police Thursday were taken in by organisations that belong to the Citizen Platform, and housed in their offices and the private homes of members.

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