Five victims, which are women activists, appeared in Court as private prosecutor withthe legal support of Irídia and the CGT (the General Confederation of Labor). The criminal complaint has been filed against the aforementioned officer and his superior authority. The police officer is accused of ongoing sexual abuse, offences of torture and against moral integrity, the finding and disclosure of secrets, and the constraints
in the realization of civic rights.

The five activisms, victims of the case, have filed a criminal complaint for the behaviour of a police officer, member of the Spanish National Police Force DHP. The police officer was infiltrated in different social movements, particularly based in the Sant Andreu neighborhood, as the labour movement. These associations are part of the grassroots movement, currently active in Barcelona. The infiltration took place between May 2020 and October 2022 and it was uncovered by La Directa, a weekly newspaper, on Monday 30 January 2023.

Irídia and the CGT, which provides legal support to the case, have stated the gravity of the facts documented, as it is unacceptable that an undercover police officer uses sexual and emotional relations with activists to gather information and uphold his identity undercover in order to sneak in the social and union fabric. It is also important to highlight that an uncovered police officer must under no circumstances be used, but to investigate in the framework of fighting against organised crime and terrorism. That assumption clearly does not apply in this case since it aims to monitor and document social movements at the same time to deconstruct them. The particular focus of such surveillance was the libertarian movement based in Barcelona, which accounts for a grave breach of civil rights.

Article 282 bis, comprised in the Spanish Criminal Procedure Law, provides the scope and possibilities to investigate in cases involving organised crimes, by noting that the investigative judge is able to authorise judicial police officers -by a substantiated resolution-, without taking for granted the specific need to investigate and to act on behalf of a false identity. According to the law, this false identity has to be given by the Ministry of Interior for a six-month period each, renewable for six additional months. Under this procedure in place, a police officer will be granted with the ability to act lawfully, regarding a particular investigation, and to participate, over the social and judicial process, under an undercover identity. The information gathered by the police officer must be addressed and provided fully back to the authority in charge of its authorization.

The Spanish Criminal Procedure Law thus limits the framework of using an undercover police officer precisely for the fight against organised crime, which must depend on a judicial oversight. This provision recalls its use by the reasoned risk that could engage severe and dangerous criminal conducts, by noting that only under those circumstance this research

method will be enable its use. Another element that must consider the limitations on the performance of undercover police officers, with exceptional functions, is the fact that these officers will not be able to engage in conducts that they would not be able to engage in under their real identity.

In Spain, police and procedural regulation assumes a weak legal body, regarding the consequences that could have on fundamental rights by the existence and performance of undercover officers, which is surrounded by total opacity that hinders public scrutiny and the involvement of political forces. Despite the existence of undercover officers is foreseen within the framework of fighting against organised crime and terrorism, the reality shows that the ambiguity of this legal framework exposes civil society and social networks at large to become potential victims of national surveillance, which accounts to arbitrary and abusive practices. The weakness and opacity documented in the Spanish legal framework, in accordance to the European Court of Human Rights juridisprudence, does not reach what is expected and fixed in the provision of articles 3 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and does not ensure the exercise of rights contained in article 8, 10 and 11 of the same convention.

For these reasons, the criminal complaint reports the aforementioned police officer for four different crimes, all committed against the five victims: five offences of systematic sexual abuse, five offences of torture and against moral integrity, five offences related to the finding and disclosure of secrets, and five offences related to the constraints in the realization of civic rights. On the other side, the criminal complaint refers to national and international cases, which proves a significative background concerning State surveillance in recent years.

In the Catalan context the complaint cites the use of Pegasus and the finding of an undercover officer in grassroots movement in Barcelona that was exposed on June 2022 by La Directa. It is noted that the Information General Commissioner -under the authority of the Spanish Police General Directorate- has clarified yet the grounds for the infiltration of a police officer nor what was the specific investigation, in which his infiltration within the independence movement and housing movement was framed in Barcelona for a period of two years. In the same way, until today, the specific use and motivation behind the application of spyware, such as Pegasus or Candiru, has also not been clarified yet. In addition, this case should not be understood as an isolated case, but rather part of a set of tools employed in other countries, such as the United Kingdom (case of Kate Wilson v. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and National Police Chiefs’ Council).

As an entity for the defense of human rights, we denounce that all red lines have been crossed:
The Spanish State is violating the right not to suffer cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, exercising sexualised institutional violence against women, who have been instrumentalised for being militants and activists. The agent’s actions were carried out in a planned, deliberate manner and with the knowledge that politicised women were being decieved into betraying their beliefs and values, since they were being pushed to carry out acts that directly threatened their ideological freedom and their political identity.

We also appreciate that the right to private and family life has been violated: in the course of these two years the agent had access to political information, but also personal information of the activists with whom he was in contact. In the case of the complainants, he had access to specially protected information, in accordance with article 9 of Organic Law 3/2018 on Data Protection, which refers to article 9.2 a) of the EU Regulation 2016/ 679, which recognizes this specific protection for information relating to ideology, union membership, religion, sexuality, beliefs or racial origin.

Finally, and as it has already been indicated above, we consider that the right of association, the right to participate in public affairs and ideological freedom have been violated. These facts directly violate the fundamental right to freedom of association and assembly of those affected. Infiltration without legal cover in social movements generates devastating effects, neutralising spaces and groups at large. This type of infiltration allows the Police to identify which are the relevant individuals and stakeholders who promote these movements, facilitating their undue criminalization and disarticulation of these movements due to the irreversible distrust that they establish within them. Ultimately, the disarticulation of political and social movement spaces implies that citizens and organised civil society cannot carry out their social participation in favor of a diverse society or fulfill their democratic function of monitoring the actions of public powers.

Therefore, from the civil society organizations and affected persons, we demand that the State take responsibility and we remind them that within the framework of the absolute prohibition of torture, the State is obliged to carry out an exhaustive and effective investigation of these facts with the objective to know its scope, ensure accountability, repair the affected persons and organizations and take the necessary measures to prevent that this won’t happen again.

The lawyers Laia Serra, from the CGT, and Mireia Salazar, Anaïs Franquesa and Sònia Olivella, from Irídia, act as lawyers for these five women, for the moment, but it is not ruled out that the complaint be expanded, in the event that other affected persons would also like to take legal action.