Today marks a year and a half since the imprisonment of Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez in Poland on February 28, 2021.
González was captured by agents of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) in the town of Przemysl, on the Polish border with Ukraine, when he was covering the Russo-Ukrainian war for various Spanish media.
Then the Polish authorities accused the journalist of espionage for Russia. When he was arrested, a three-month pre-trial detention order was issued, and since then his prison term has been extended five times. A judicial decision was repeated without providing new information or details about the case, or revealing the facts he was accused of, with only the charge he was accused of: espionage.
Incommunicado in a cell measuring five meters
Since then, he has been spending 23 hours a day in a cell measuring five square meters with another prisoner. He is not allowed to communicate by phone with any of his three children, which causes psychological harm to his youngest son, who is 11 years old. His wife barely managed to visit him three times, and when letters reach him, they are censored months after they were sent.
His Spanish lawyer, Gonzalo Puyi, has spent nearly a year without being able to take charge of the defence, due to Polish bureaucratic hurdles, and neither he nor the Polish lawyers have had access to the legal case yet.
This situation clearly violates the Convention on Human Rights, the laws and regulations of the European Union that Poland must abide by as a member state, and of course the Spanish laws. However, of course no Spanish or Polish government official seemed concerned.
Birth crime in Russia
Among the evidence provided by the Polish authorities to accuse him of being a spy is that he has two passports, one Russian in the name of Pavel and the other Spanish in the name of Pablo. Pablo González was born in Moscow, the great-grandson of Spanish evacuees from the civil war, called “children of war”, who were sent to the Soviet Union to escape the repression announced after the victory was already inevitable. From the Franco side…
His mother married a Russian citizen, Pablo’s father, but when the boy was eight years old, they separated and she came with him to Spain. This is why he holds dual nationalities, and therefore has two passports.
It is logical that he has been fluent in Russian since he was a child and is also a doctor of Slavic philology. As a journalist, he has covered conflicts in the post-Soviet space since the Donbas war in 2014, Georgia, the Balkans, etc. Which made him the ideal journalist for many Spanish media to send to Ukraine.
There is no support from the Spanish government
The family and friends condemn that the Spanish government and the European authorities did not seek appropriate explanations from the Polish authorities or guarantee the rights of Pablo González. This is why MEPs from the Left and Green groups promoted the conference with Gonzalez’s relatives last July. Journalism is not a crime! (Journalism is not a crime!) in Brussels.
On August 25, the established Madrid Support Group delivered a new letter addressed to the Minister to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding justice, while urging the Spanish government to comply with its obligations and defend the rights of detainees who, because of the situation in which they live, find themselves inside, And they are being violated day after day by the Polish authorities.
They also ask that “the necessary steps be taken so that Pablo González can return to Spain under supervision, as long as a fair trial takes place as soon as possible.” In the meantime, he must stop being isolated in his cell for 23 hours a day, without family contact, without a full right of defence, and without a formal charge.”
His support group believes that the Spanish government “has not yet moved in favor of respecting the rights of Pablo Gonzalez” and has not given up responding to any of his writings.
When an American journalist is imprisoned by Russia
Meanwhile, on 29 March, American journalist Ivan Gershkovitch, the Wall Street Journal’s correspondent in Russia, was arrested in Yekaterinburg, Russia. He is accused of espionage for the US government and, according to the Kremlin statement, was arrested when he was arrested at the Uralvagonzavod military-industrial complex devoted to mass production of tanks, where he said he was preparing a report.
His prison conditions are acceptable, as he was able to meet his lawyer shortly after his arrest while he is in a cell with a TV, radio and refrigerator. Of course, he enjoys the support of the authorities of his country and NATO countries, which rushed to demand his release, starting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, all the way to the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell. Journalists must be able to freely practice their profession and must be protected“Josep Borrell said after he condemned what he described as a serious attack on the freedom of the press.
We are imprisoned
None of this discontent and concern about freedom of the press arose after the arrest of Pablo Gonzalez. He was imprisoned by “us”.
We can imagine what the Spanish and European authorities would have been like if Pablo Gonzalez had been imprisoned in Russia.
(taken from Venezuelan news. Cover Photo: Photo by Pablo Gonzalez [Público.es] It was taken by his friend, photojournalist Juan Teixeira.)
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