The association UCM por la Pública has denounced the actions of the National Police during the charges recorded last October 14 at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), coinciding with the first day of the education strike, and has described the intervention as "unnecessary" and disproportionate, in addition to describing it as a "brutal police aggression" in which several students suffered injuries.
The collective has prepared a report based on testimonies, recordings, and medical documentation, in which it maintains that two police charges occurred in the vicinity of the Complutense, during an informational picket held near the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of Ciudad Universitaria.
According to their account, agents hit demonstrators with their batons, dragged people on the ground, and used riot gear without prior warning of dissolution. The association also refers to blows with batons, pushes, and drags, and states that the intervention was "savage and indiscriminate", even at a time when some teachers, identified as interlocutors, tried to mediate with the agents to end the action.
The document records injuries such as an olecranon fracture in the left arm, an incised-contused wound, multiple contusions, and a contusion on one hand. In addition, it states that three people had to be evacuated to hospitals, and adds that the images and photographs collected allow some of the injuries to be related to the reported actions and agents to be identified.
The version of the Government Delegation and the disseminated images
The Government Delegation reported that the National Police went to the area after receiving warnings about traffic cuts and the presence of masked individuals, and also pointed to some demonstrators who allegedly tried to jump the police cordon.
The complaint by UCM por la Pública is also supported by images and recordings disseminated on social networks and by the members of the association themselves after the intervention. In these videos, the collective maintains, agents are seen charging against the demonstrators and acting, in their opinion, against the principles of proportionality and good police practice.
The Complutense University of Madrid itself expressed its "condemnation and deep concern" about the charges and expressed its unease, especially, about the "images of the police intervention". The institution also clarified that it had not "requested or promoted the presence or intervention of the National Police" and defended the right to peaceful assembly, demonstration, and expression of the university community.
For his part, the Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, called for an "urgent investigation" into images he described as "very harsh" and in which, he said, there could be indications of disproportionality. Days later, after the charges in a concentration within the framework of an act by the regional president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, he again demanded another investigation.
Fundamental rights and possible responsibilities
On the legal front, the report argues that the charges violated the fundamental rights of assembly, strike, and physical integrity, enshrined in articles 21, 28.2, and 15 of the Constitution, respectively.
The association argues that there was no prior warning of dissolution nor a situation of violence that justified the use of force, and considers that the police action breached the principles of necessity, congruence, and proportionality provided for in the Organic Law of Security Forces and Bodies.
The collective also questions the entry of the National Police into the campus without, it assures, a request from the Rectorate, as well as the maintenance of a police cordon for more than 90 minutes, which in its opinion limited the departure of those gathered and prevented the development of "peaceful" informational pickets.
Based on these arguments, UCM por la Pública raises possible criminal liabilities for injuries and alleged crimes against moral integrity, as well as for the dissolution of a peaceful meeting outside the legally permitted assumptions.
