The crime of glorifying terrorism is back before the National Court. Twelve years after the end of ETA, the organization around which this crime revolved, a Vox complaint against two Palestinian activists led to their indictments for the content of their respective interventions during an appearance organized by Podemos in Congress deputies. The resolution that issued his indictment notes that one of the appearing parties described the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 and 8, 2023, which left 1,261 dead and the kidnapping of 251 other people, as “courageous initiative”.
“The events that occurred on the aforementioned dates were unequivocally qualified as acts of terrorism, both by the authorities of the European Union and by the national authorities,” argued Judge Joaquín Gadea before leaving the Central Court of Investigation number 6. The defenses respond that it is the UN itself that recognizes armed actions in Palestine and Israel as part of an “armed conflict in which several parties” are involved.
On June 3, Podemos organized a parliamentary day to address the situation in Palestine from the perspective of history and human rights. Two of the guests, Jaldia Abubakra and Miriam Ojeda, are the activists that Vox reported in its complaint and that Gadea, then a judge who supported Manuel García Castellón at the time of his accusation, agreed to investigate.
The far-right party selects certain statements from the guests. According to Jaldia Abubakra, founder of the Al-Karama Palestinian Women’s Movement, the party emphasizes: “The courageous initiative of the Palestinian resistance on October 7 put the Palestinian question back on the political and media agenda.”
To accuse the militants, Judge Gadea resorted to a statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, on the occasion of October 7, in the sense that Spain condemns from the first moment the “terrorism” of Hamas . Furthermore, to defend the competence of the National Court to investigate, the magistrate pointed out that two of the people who died in the attacks had Spanish nationality.
Jaldia Abubakra’s defense refutes the main one. He assures that Vox is making an interested interpretation of his client’s words. First of all, lawyer Antonio Segura claims that Abubakra made the October 7 attacks part of a previous armed strategy. In this sense, his client declared that this strategy led that day to a “humiliating resistance operation, a great political and military victory for Palestine”.
In his own speech, Abubakra outlined what later became his defense strategy: “We have international legislation that authorizes colonized peoples to resist by all possible means, including armed struggle. ” In this sense, Abubakra’s lawyer adds: “We do not see here any glorification of Hamas or any other terrorist organization. And if we did, we would have to adhere to the thesis that the United Nations glorifies terrorism, a thesis that only the Israeli government defends. »
The defense uses resolution 3070, published in 1973 and relating to “the self-determination of peoples” and “the rapid granting of independence to colonized countries and peoples”. “That this did not start on October 7 seems obvious, but also necessary to contextualize the Israeli-Palestinian armed conflict. It is true that those who try to criminalize all those who support the struggle of the Palestinian people are trying to decontextualize the conflict and focus on it only on October 7, in a partial history, as a single act that is not part of a conflict which extends over decades”, summarizes the defense in a letter in which it has just requested the archiving of the debates.
Amnesty International demands the archives
Both defendants made statements on October 29. A small rally organized by Amnesty International took place in front of the headquarters of the National Court. “None of the comments for which these two activists are being investigated can be considered as incitement to hatred or direct incitement to violence,” specifies the non-governmental organization.
Amnesty International calls for the case to be archived and expresses its “concern at the broad and vague definition of the offense of glorifying terrorism in the Spanish Penal Code, which allows the State to criminalize expressions protected by international rights standards humans.”
In its complaint, Vox highlighted other expressions uttered during the aforementioned congressional appearances. “From the first moment, the media started bombarding us with the idea that it was a terrorist attack, that babies had been decapitated, women had been raped and, thanks to time, it was demonstrated that it was false, that it was false. propaganda, that all Zionist propaganda has fallen to the ground,” states the complaint against Abubakra.
Of the two activists, Vox focuses only on one of the statements made by Miriam Ojeda, president of the Samidoum network: “One of the things we have to thank [al 7 de octubre] “It puts the Palestinian issue at the center.”
Before Judge María Tardón – now in charge of the case – Ojeda declared that it was a simple analysis according to which, despite the increase in “killings and imprisonments of Palestinians without guarantees”, the conflict and its consequences for the civilian population had disappeared from the media, explain legal sources. Ojeada added that after the October 7 attacks, the situation of the Palestinians was discussed again and his statement was made without justification or glorification of terrorism or humiliation of the victims. Like Abubakra, Miriam Ojeda’s defense emphasizes that none of them mentioned Hamas in their speeches in Congress. Israel killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in response to the October 7 attacks.
