Justice for the Altsasu youth. Aritz Leoz. All rights reserved.
In the early hours of October 15, 2016, in an Alsasua bar (in Basque, Altsasu), in the Basque Country, in the north of Spain, a brawl broke out between a number of young people and a couple of Guardia Civil (Spain's paramilitary force). Damage assessment: a swollen lip and a broken carpal. This is nothing unusual in a country like Spain in which, in 2016 alone, there were 9,571 reported clashes between policemen and citizens, often described as resistance to public authority. In this Basque case a complaint was also filed before the local authorities.
But then something out of the ordinary happened: "We got scared when we saw how the case our kids were involved in was being treated by certain Spanish newspapers and also on television. They said that our Alsasua town is divided, that Civil Guard officers cannot move freely without being insulted by the people. They spoke of a situation of extreme violence, which has nothing to do with the reality of the place. The press were preparing the ground for what came next," says Bel Bozueta, the mother of Adur.
