salvador puig antich

Parliament calls to annul summary courts-martials during Franco regime

October 19, 2016 06:44 PM | ACN

The Catalan Parliament passed this Wednesday a bill aimed at annulling all the express judicial sentences of the Franco regime, known as summary court-martials. 78,000 people were condemned between 1939 and 1975, 20,000 of them through these judicial procedures, among which was the Catalan President Lluís Companys, who was executed in 1940, and the anarchist activist Salvador Puig Antich, who was one of the last victims of the Francoist garrotte executions for political reasons. Now, 41 years after Franco’s death, the victims and relatives of the victims is seeing the Parliament take action so as that all the verdicts can be declared null and void. This proposal of judicial reparation for the “dignity” of the victims was driven by the cross-party pro-independence coalition ‘Junts pel Sí’, the radical-left CUP and the alternative left-coalition ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot' (CSQP).

Francoism victims denounce in Brussels the impunity of the dictatorship’s crimes in Spain

March 10, 2015 09:37 PM | ACN / Isaac Meler

The victims of Franco's regime have denounced before the European Parliament in Brussels crimes committed during the dictatorship and their impunity in Spain. They urged EU institutions to play “a more active and committed role” in facing the problem. Merçona Puig, sister of Salvador Puig Antich, who was one of the last victims of the Francoist garrotte executions, hopes that this action will serve “to apply pressure” so that Francoist ex-ministers can be extradited to Argentina, where there is an ongoing judicial process. Other figures also participated in the Brussels event, such as representatives of the association for babies stolen during the dictatorship and the association of the 1976 Vitoria massacre, where police fired on striking workers.