JUSTICE FOR THE PAST, DIGNITY FOR THE PRESENT

Salvador Puig Antich, a victim of the Repression

The Francoist Repression, also the White Terror, in Spain was the series of politically motivated actions of violence, rape, and other crimes committed by the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War (17 July 1936–1 April 1939), and during the first decade of Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1 October 1936–20 November 1975). 

For nine years (1936–45), the official mass killings of the loyalists to the Second Spanish Republic (1931–39) included the Popular Front, liberals, Socialists, Trotskyists, Communists, anarchists, Protestant Christians, freethinkers, intellectuals, Freemasons, and Catalan and Basque people.

More information: History Today

To eliminate Red leftism in Spain, the White Terror realized the Nationalists’ political reaction, the re-establishment of the monarchic status quo ante in place of the democratic Spanish republic. The right-wing notion of a limpieza, cleansing of society was an essential political strategy of the Franco government, thus, the assassinations began immediately after the nationalists captured a place. 

The Model Prison in Barcelona: terror and death

The Civil Guard, nationalist military, and the fascist Falange realized political violence against civilians in name of Franco, and were ideologically legitimized by the Roman Catholic Church as defenders of Christendom.

Throughout the Franco dictatorship, the Law of Political Responsibilities, Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas, promulgated in 1939, reformed in 1942, and in force until 1966, gave legalistic color of law to the political repression that characterized the dismantling of the democratic republic; and served to punish loyalist Spaniards who survived the military coup d’État against the Spanish Republic in July 1936. 

In 2015, the government of Spain refused Spanish historians access to the pertinent government archives, open to foreign historians, which would allow determining the physical whereabouts and political fate of victims of the White Terror.

Historians of the Spanish Civil War concur that the death toll of the White was greater than the death toll of the Red Terror (38,000–72,344), because the White Terror was formal policy of the Nationalist government of General Franco until 1945, six years after the end of Spanish Civil War, in 1939.

From 1938 to 1978, 63961 people were processed in Catalonia by the dictatorship without legal conditions. Today, June, 29 2017, the Catalan Parliament has annulled all those illegal judgements and has restored the dignity of all the victims of the Franco's dictatorship.

Justice the past, dignity the present, hope the future.

More information: Revolvy

The struggle is so great that the triumph over fascism 

alone is worth the sacrifice of our lives. 

Federica Montseny