Human Rights as Practiced by Europe

[Sertorio]

On ‘Prisoners of Conscience’ Who Fell Through the Cracks of EU Values
by Stephen Karganovic - March 15, 2023
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023 ... eu-values/

Those who watched Duran associate Alex Christoforou’s podcast the other day [at 18 to 19:45 minutes] must have been as taken aback as I was by Alex’s revelation of the unsavoury fate of Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzales in European “values” stronghold Poland.

Gonzales, a Spanish (another “EU values” country) citizen, it turns out has been rotting in a Polish prison for the past year. Not a week, not a month or even a couple of months, but for just over a year. And nobody knew or cared. He is not being detained on any specific charges to which he could mount a legal defence. He is listed simply as “under investigation” for the somewhat vague offence of being an agent of Russia. If that is what indeed he is, so far it seems no judicially cognisable evidence to support such an allegation has been produced by the Polish authorities. After just over a year that Gonzales has been kept in prison, the Polish “investigation” has failed to turn up any incriminating facts that might form the basis for even a flimsy indictment. As a result, no charges have been filed and no trial is in prospect for Gonzales. As trite as that may sound, it is also disturbingly accurate: in the Europe that, with its gallant overseas allies, fights for democracy in Ukraine, European journalist Pablo Gonzales is languishing in a Kafkaesque predicament.

In his expose, Alex Christoforou asks the natural question, “Where is the Spanish government in all this?” [at 19:20 minutes]. The answer is bound to disillusion everyone who imagined that in situations such as this morality had any influence over political decisions. It all comes down to the odious principle of raison d’état. Spain has issues with Catalan and Basque troublemakers and is loath to create a precedent that would provide foreigners a pretext to meddle in the way it treats its prisoners. For Spain the convenient solution therefore is to downplay the incarceration in Poland of one of its own citizens and hope that no one will notice.

Thankfully, Alex Christoforou did. And he informs us that since February of last year, in Poland, Spanish and EU citizen Gonzales has been kept in solitary confinement in an EU country, his wife and children have been denied all but a few brief visits, his lawyer’s efforts to communicate with his client have been systematically thwarted, and that, scandalously, the prisoner has been left essentially without consular protection. The Spanish government has signalled its disinterest to Gonzales’ Polish jailers.

Had it been a Russian journalist and everybody - including your good selves - would have been up in arms about another Russian violation of human rights. But since it a Spanish journalist, nobody gives a damn...

[SteveFoerster]

No, that's dreadful. Assuming that story is accurate, Gonzales should be released immediately and heads should roll in both Madrid and Warsaw.

[Sertorio]

No, that's dreadful. Assuming that story is accurate, Gonzales should be released immediately and heads should roll in both Madrid and Warsaw.

Unfortunately the propaganda machine which you sometimes call the "western media" does not seem to think so...