On March 21, 2022, Russian troops stormed the home of Vladimir Kasapa, the mayor of Novopetrivka, a village of about a thousand inhabitants in the Mykolaiv region of southeastern Ukraine. The soldiers wounded him and his wife in the feet and demanded he return the weapons the Kremlin army had abandoned during an initial withdrawal the day before. Vladimir collected all the weapons the villagers had taken and returned them to the soldiers, but that wasn't enough, and they kidnapped him. Ten months later, when the Ukrainian army regained control of the town, they discovered his body in a hole, bearing signs of torture.

"I endured the torture. I didn't speak. When we left the General Directorate of Security, my feet were black from the beatings, but I had a moment of euphoria because I hadn't said anything. None of us had spoken. The torturers broke me, and that's given me plenty all my life. If they didn't manage to break me, let's see me." An anti-Franco militant of the Revolutionary Communist League, she was tortured by Antonio González Pacheco, better known by the nickname Billy the Kid. During the 14 months she was detained in Madrid's Yeserías prison, Rius wrote and drew, which she is now publishing in book form: Drawn Memory. Yeserías Prison (1974-1975) With a prologue by Ignasi Aragay and published by L'Avenç. Neither repression nor beatings stopped her, and her resilience has served her well in many of the other struggles she has faced as an activist and militant throughout her life.

The doors of the Spanish justice system have been closed to Carlos Vallejo many times. Now, together with the Irídia collective, this anti-Franco activist has decided to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. Vallejo was arrested in December 1970. During the state of emergency, the police were able to detain him for an entire month on Via Laietana. The police used various torture techniques on him, all extremely painful, such as tying his hands under his legs and constantly punching and kicking him. They were never investigated. In November 2022, Vallejo, along with the Irídia collective and Òmnium Cultural, filed a complaint for crimes against humanity against her torturers.Vallejo's lawsuit was the first after the entry into force of the law of democratic memory of 2022. Even the Generalitat supported him and filed a private lawsuit. Despite all the appeals filed, the last one before the Constitutional Court, his case was dismissed, and the Spanish justice system decided not to investigate.

The philologist Blanca Serra, that with his sister, the historian Eva Serra (who died in 2018), who went to the Via Laietana police station four times—in February 1977, July 1980, December 1981, and March 1982—made it clear this Monday at the City of Justice that she doesn't intend to give up, but also that she's not very optimistic.

If the judges are an insurmountable wall to investigate the crimes of Franco's regime and refuse to listen to the victims, the Prosecutor's Office will do so. For the first time, the Barcelona Prosecutor's Office, together with the Human Rights and Democratic Memory Unit of the State Attorney General's Office, has opened an investigation into the torture carried out by Franco's police in February 1977. This is the complaint filed, in November of last year, by the Via Laietana police station: February 1977, July 1980, December 1981, and March 1982. Blanca filed a complaint with the Barcelona Prosecutor for Human Rights and Democratic Memory, Sara Gómez Expósito. Until then, all the complaints had been submitted to a court.

The Intxaurrondo barracks, headquarters of the Guipúzcoa Civil Guard Command, was known by the nickname the discotheque. And not because before the armed body was installed it was a leisure centre, but because the neighbours explained that they played music at full blast to avoid hearing the screams of the people being tortured.