“You have the power not to disappoint us again.” This is the message that the President of the Government received from 4,800 victims of terrorism in a letter sent on behalf of all by the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT). Maite Araluce, president of the organization, signs this letter demanding the immediate withdrawal of the reform of Organic Law 7/2014, of November 12, which was unanimously approved by the parliamentary commission and which, if it enters into force, will result in the reduction of the effective period of detention for a maximum of forty terrorists.
Four days have passed since the government finalized its plan to reduce the sentences of around forty ETA members who had served sentences in French prisons. Under the thesis that it was simply a transposition of European regulations, the Executive managed to satisfy its EH Bildu investiture partners by reforming the said law. A new transfer which, as expected, will result in parliamentary support, which Araluce already underlines in his letter: “Don’t trade the victims of terrorism for a handful of bloody votes”.
Araluce has already shown his rejection of the measure by refusing to greet the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, during an international conference, precisely, of victims of terrorism promoted by the United Nations, which was held this week in Vitoria. The president of the AVT even went so far as to reprimand her, as Araluce herself told ABC: “stop lying to us,” she told Marlaska during this meeting. Today, two days later, he does the same with the president of the government, but in a very different tone, that of supplication.
Although Araluce herself admits that her relationship with Sánchez “has been very complicated from the beginning”, the president of the AVT addresses this letter to the President of the Government to ask him to prevent the reform and the consequences it will have, of which the AVT has already warned in 2022 but that the Ministry of the Interior “categorically denied”. Ultimately, the association’s worst fears were realized two years later, with victims horrified that murderers like Txapote would be released from prison next year.
“We, the victims, are devastated and with a feeling of helplessness,” says Araluce, who says in the letter that since October 7, when the news was announced, the association’s switchboard has been overwhelmed with calls from victims with “panic and anxiety attacks”. The feeling of helplessness has spread among the more than 4,800 people who make up the AVT and who, through the letter signed by Araluce, express their indignation, “the general feeling is that they are returning to kill our loved ones. As if the terrorists celebrated victory by dancing on their graves,” he said.
But it is not only the victims, assures Araluce, who received this news with shock and anger, it is also ordinary Spanish citizens who, even if they have not suffered terrorism, wanted to contact the AVT to express their opinion on the subject. reduction of sentences for terrorists, forged in the Congress of Deputies. “We do not understand”, states the text, “how the end of ETA terrorism the executioners write it. How to Kill will be virtually free in this country. “The bloodshed and all the pain that all Spaniards have endured, and especially the victims of terrorism, have been for nothing.”
