Madrid, Oct 6 (EFE).- Spanish activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla expelled from Israel reported Monday night upon their arrival in Madrid that they suffered “low-impact torture” during their detention and flagged that one of their companions has not yet returned to Spain.
“We are not all here. Reyes Rigo from Mallorca is missing. We are worried about the companions who have been left behind. We will not stop until they leave,” said the coordinator of Podemos Illes Balears, Lucía Muñoz, in front of television cameras waiting for them at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport.
Activist Alejandra Martínez said that the latest information about Rigo is that she was taken from her room on Sunday night in an episode of “extreme violence.”
“She was dragged by her hair and taken to solitary confinement. We haven’t seen her again. She is the only Spanish citizen who hasn’t returned, and we ask the Spanish government to facilitate her return home,” she stated.
Furthermore, one of the activists who arrived Monday in this group of 27 Spaniards claimed that they experienced “low-impact torture” and “degrading” treatment.
“They robbed us, beat us, humiliated us, and tortured us with various underhand techniques. They kept us in an open-air cell, and the Israeli foreign minister called us terrorists with cameras filming us in a high-security open-air cell,” she said, adding that they were also denied medication.
Another activist reported that they were kept in vans in the sun for four hours to make them thirsty and then offered bottles of water in front of the cameras to show “their kindness.”
“Most of them managed to hold back their thirst because we knew it was a trick,” she stated.
Furthermore, another of the women on the flotilla said that they spent 30 or 40 hours without leaving their rooms, in very high temperatures, in overcrowded cells with 15 women in less than 20 square meters, without sanitary products for menstruation, without water, food or medicine, and with constant sleep deprivation.
Activist Serigne Mbaye called on the Spanish government to adopt strong diplomatic measures.
“We want the Spanish government to break relations with Israel. This is a disgrace. What the government hasn’t done, civil society is doing. It should block Israel because what it has committed is genocide. If they’ve treated us like this, imagine how they’re treating the Palestinians, but it’s not seen on any camera,” he said. EFE
mam/tw