A 42-year-old man and a 43-year-old woman have been in pretrial detention since last Friday, accused of habitual abuse, serious bodily harm, and sexual assault against their son, a child just over a month old, who has been placed under the guardianship of the Catalan government. The couple was arrested last Wednesday, March 18, and appeared before the Barcelona court specializing in violence against children and adolescents last Friday. The judge ordered them held in pretrial detention without bail, as explained this Monday by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). Among the arguments put forward by the prosecution to request the parents' imprisonment were the risk that the abuse would continue and the possibility that the arrested individuals might choose to flee given the severity of the penalties they face. The prosecution also saw the risk that the parents could "violate the child's legal rights." For all these reasons, he requested pretrial detention and the suspension of parental rights as precautionary measures.

It's sad to read the witnesses of the women who denounce the alleged abuses of Julio Iglesias published by Eldiario.es and not feel surprised, that the events explained are perfectly plausible, that they don't surprise us in the slightest. Which doesn't prevent, of course, the shock caused by some chilling details about the system of exploitation to which he subjected his victims. We could have easily deduced, from how he spoke of the ladies and how he treated them in public, that the Latin lover He was, in reality, an unscrupulous predator. But that's how these inveterate seducers are; they can't help it. They have such sexual prowess that they have to go around the world sleeping with anyone who crosses their path. It was one of the things the singer was admired for worldwide: for being a conqueror without anyone questioning what his conquests thought. And what must they have thought? What an honor, what a privilege to be chosen by a man who could have them all, with success, money, and power. What could they say, barely reached adulthood, when, in the middle of an interview, he made comments about their appearance, asked them if they had a boyfriend, or planted a kiss right on their lips? With the scandal of the accusations, television networks have compiled the most shocking moments of the man, because they constitute outright assaults committed live before an audience that laughs, applauds, and celebrates this normalized violence. Who could say a word if he was like that? You know, men. Seeing the images of kisses reminded me of all the disgusting strangers, the flexibility women's necks acquire from doing the cobra, all the strategies we've had to adopt to avoid those who think they're good lovers when they don't have the slightest idea what good sex means, which always begins with...

Can a choice as simple as a name change our lives? That's the question British writer Florence Knapp poses in her literary debut: The names (Ediciones 62/Salamandra), translated into Catalan by Núria Parés Sellarès. The novel, already translated into 25 languages, tells the story of a mother, a victim of her husband's violence, who goes to the civil registry and hesitates about what to name her second son. From there, it presents three different lives depending on the chosen name.

A man has been sentenced to ten and a half years in prison for abusing his one-month-old son in Montblanc. The man caused injuries that required surgery and one ICU admission in 2019The child suffers after-effects that, now that he is five years old and under the guardianship of the Generalitat (Catalan government), have resulted in a 70% disability. The ruling by the Tarragona Court ultimately acquitted the mother, who was also held in pretrial detention under investigation for the abuse.

It is not the first time that the Council of Europe - a European regional body in defense of human rights - denounces police abuse in the State, but in the report published on Tuesday the organisation goes further and warns that these are not isolated cases but that the mistreatment has become an all too frequent practice. "It is a matter of great concern", the document states. After a visit to different prisons - mostly in Madrid, Valencia and Seville - by members of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and interviewing dozens of prisoners in September 2020, the Council of Europe concludes that "there continues to be a pattern of physical abuse inflicted by prison officers as a disproportionate and punitive reaction" to the behaviour of some prisoners, and calls on Pedro Sánchez's government to take steps to curb police violence.