Brechas Podcast – Rubber Bullets
Carles Guillot and Esther Quintana They lost an eye in very similar circumstances. Both were hit by a rubber bullet fired by a police officer while exercising their right to protest. In their very long legal battle to identify those responsible, they found the necessary support from their female colleagues, friends, family, and civil society, not only to demand justice and reparations from the State, but also the ban of this type of weapon, as imprecise as it is lethal.
Uncontrollable Indiscriminate Untraceable
Since the year 2000, in the Spanish State counts One person was killed by a direct shot, and up to eleven people have lost sight in one eye.
3 key points of the episode
PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT
According to Marina Parras, a member of the medical team at the Sira Center and a collaborator with the Omega Research Foundation, cases of mutilation like those of Carles and Ester do not trigger any specific protocol that includes psychological support or social work intervention. The victims are treated as if they had suffered an accidental injury.
CONTROL MECHANISMS
Without a known perpetrator, there is no conviction. Often, cases that reach the courts depend on information provided by the police themselves, who are frequently not properly identified, warns Irene Urango of Irídia. This center, along with Novact and experts from the Sira Center, presented an Action Plan last year to create an independent mechanism to investigate serious human rights violations committed by the police.
MUTUAL SUPPORT
Ester, Carles, Nicola, Roger, Òscar, Stop Rubber Bullets, and Watch Out for Your Eye have been demanding a ban on kinetic energy projectiles and denouncing the consequences of their use for many years in all kinds of spaces. "For us, it was important to all get together; that this be a first contact, and then we'd see what would happen. And what happened was a friendship and activism that we've been doing since 2012," explains Carles Guillot.
