The European Group for the Study of Deviation and Social Control presents this statement of total support for Iñaki Rivera

Mr. Rivera, Director of the Observatory of the Criminal System and Human Rights at the University of Barcelona, has been criminally denounced by the section of prison workers of the union CC.OO. for publicly denouncing the existence of torture and ill-treatment in prisons. This criminal accusation is another step in a history of harassment, threats and offenses that both Iñaki Rivera and the OSPDH have suffered now for 15 years as a direct result of, and in response to, their work defending the rights of prisoners and denouncing the violation of these rights in the deprivation of liberty.

From the European Group we show our support for Iñaki Rivera and the OSPDH and denounce this campaign of harassment that not only has a very negative impact on those directly involved but is a clear anti-democratic exercise of (in)justice and as a warning against others who denounce the violence suffered by some people inside prisons. We ask the governments of Spain and Catalonia to do everything possible to prevent the criminalisation of the free exercise of the defense of human rights and to put measures in place to protect Mr. Rivera and other members of the OSPDH team both psychologically and physically