“Let's not start the house with the roof. First, serenity and see what has gone wrong, and then, in any case, see what responsibilities must be assumed.” The person who responded like this to Gemma Nierga yesterday on RTVE was the vice president of the Government, Laura Vilagrà. For the first time, a member of the Catalan Executive opened the door to resignations in the Ministry of Justice in the face of the open crisis with prison officials after an inmate murdered the head chef of Mas d'Enric last Thursday.
The family of Nuria López López, 46, wanted to be present at the rally that hundreds of officials and the rest of the Catalan prison professionals held in the Plaza de Sant Jaume in Barcelona. A concentration that took place without incident and with a strong riot police presence around the Palau de la Generalitat. All the riot police who were not at the prison gates last week were in the city center yesterday. The objective of the rally was to meet with President Pere Aragonés. Finally, they were received by Vilagrà after the vice president assured that she would not move from the Palau de la Generalitat, where she was waiting for the union representatives.
In addition to the vice president, the meeting was attended by two other senior officials of the Executive, but no members of the Justice leadership, whom the unions classify as “invalid” interlocutors for dialogue.
After six days of protests, with the truce on Tuesday, the meeting ended without agreements, but it served to begin to loosen a rope that officials are not willing to let go.
Vilagrà informed the unions that the Government is willing to assume “the pertinent responsibilities”, but that it will not be before the report is finalized that must specify what went wrong that caused the head chef to be murdered by an inmate who had been working in the kitchen for some time. four years.
At this point, prison officials no longer need any internal investigation to know what happened that Thursday, around four in the afternoon. Nuria's own colleagues in the kitchen or the Mas d'Enric officials insisted yesterday on the irresponsibility of normalizing the presence of certain profiles of inmates in positions of responsibility with access to weapons, such as the kitchen.
The indignation of the group grew throughout the morning and mutated into rage and pain when the victim's family conveyed details of the crime to one of Nuria's colleagues. “We want everyone to know that Nuria suffered a lot. She had bruises on her body from the blows she gave her and from which she defended herself as best she could, because her nails were chipped from fighting until the end,” her nephew said.
The officials once again pointed to the Center for Reintegration Initiatives (CIRE), the public company of the Generalitat that until now has remained sidelined in the crisis and which was the one that had hired both Nuria and Iulian Odriste, 48 years old. , sentenced to 11 for murdering another woman, also with a kitchen knife.
The workers maintained an emotional five-minute silence in tribute to the victim, a symbol of protests that have no signs of dying down. But with increasingly distant positions among the group of officials and that were perfectly visible during the concentration.
Anger, pain and helplessness unite them, as well as the need to mark with this murder, the first of a prison worker in recent years in Spain, a turning point in security conditions. But there is no consensus on how to move forward with the protests without directly harming the inmates.
There is an increasingly large group of officials who understand that the collective protests cannot directly affect the prisoners again. The first days of blockades in most of the centers meant that thousands of inmates were unable to leave their cells. A situation of violation of fundamental rights that has provoked harsh criticism from associations, family groups and a lawyer from Girona to file a complaint in a court on duty.
That part of the group is in favor of protests like those yesterday in the Plaza de Sant Jaume or the one that is being called today in front of the Parliament, where the Minister of Justice, Gemma Ubasart, will appear to explain the crisis. Another part of the group, however, defends blocking the operation of the centers again, aware of the high impact that the measure has. A very risky option, however, because the tension outside is transferred to the inside of the prisons, endangering the integrity of workers and inmates.
Where there is an absolute consensus is that no representative of the workers will sit down to negotiate without resignations first occurring in Justice. Specifically, that of Councilor Ubasart and that of the secretary of Penal Measures, Reintegration and Victim Support of the Department of Justice, Amand Calderó.
Vilagrà insisted on offering the unions to “sit down” to share information and “decisions”, as well as “resuming” the conversations underway to improve security in the centers.
After the meeting, the Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, described the meeting as a “first step”, after half a dozen meetings in which the unions stood up to the administration.
Plaja insisted that the Executive keeps its hand extended to "listen to them and to change what needs to be changed if it implies more security." But with the same harshness as on Sunday in which she intervened with Minister Ubasart, she warned the officials that their demands for resignations cannot be the “starting point” of negotiations. And she once again praised the figure of Calderó, an “absolute reference” of the Catalan penitentiary model, which is committed to rehabilitation and reintegration and that “works.”
However, the spokesperson assured that when the Government has all the information about the murder of the Mas d'Enric worker, “without haste, but also without delay, we will assume all the responsibilities and all the necessary decisions to minimize the risks in prisons and so that such serious events never happen again," he promised.
Some promises that officials assure come too late for Nuria, but also for them.
