The Via Laietana police station was a torture center that also targeted homosexuals and transsexuals
For many years the number 43 from the central Via Laietana de Barcelona It was a torture center for political activists detained during the dictatorship and also for homosexuals and transsexuals, especially among 1954 and 1978. This afternoon the Dignity Commission in collaboration with ANC has organized a rally to denounce the harassment, mistreatment and torture suffered by LGTBI people and request that the building stop having police uses and pass into the hands of the Generalitat to transform it into a memory space.
The Comissió de la Dignitat carries out these actions with different reprisal groups in the Via Layetana police station, as a result of the declarations of the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Perez Ruiz, on Police Day held in Barcelona in 2021, where he assured that the headquarters of the National Police on Via Laietana in Barcelona «has been and is a symbol of public service from which several generations of police officers have contributed and continue to contribute to strengthening democracy«.
Some were arrested by Law of Vagrants and Crooks They were sentenced forpublic scandal»Or«acts against morality and good customs«. In 1970 the persecution intensified with the Law of Social Hazard, whose goal was to eradicate homosexuality.
Tanya's memory
In the event this afternoon at 19:XNUMX p.m., there will be Tania Navarro, one of the first transsexuals in the country, who will explain the mistreatment and humiliation to which the police subjected her. Tania was persecuted and retaliated against both as a child and as a young woman for being a trans woman. Tania counted up to eleven entries in the superior police headquarters of Via Laietana.
Every time she was detained, the harassment and physical abuse by the police was repeated. «One day I couldn't take it anymore and when someone came and hit me with a wafer, I was sure that I would be hit hard and then I headed myself against a filing cabinet and caused a wound. They gave me a Kleenex for the blood and they gave me a go", Explain.
In the concentration will also intervene Alpe Concepts, activist of the collective struggle and Leopold Estapé, student of the repression of the LGTBI movement. I stamped is one of the greatest experts in the history of movement LGTBI in Catalonia. We highly recommend following his blog. L'armari obert.
