A Spanish policewoman infiltrated the Palestinian movement and the left-wing independence movement for two years

BarcelonaNew case of infiltration in Catalan social and political movements. A 26-year-old National Police officer spent more than two years infiltrating the movement for Palestine and the pro-independence left, according to published this Wednesday The Direct and have denounced the affected groups in a joint press conference this morning. Under the name of Belén Hammad Gómez, the agent used the Palestinian Community of Catalonia as a gateway to activism and then approached the Casal Popular 3 Voltes Rebel, in the Nou Barris district of Barcelona, ​​​​and the left-wing independentist organization Endavant. From these spaces, in the fall of 2019 he actively participated in the mobilizations against the sentence of the Process, including the protests in Plaza Urquinaona.

The infiltration would have begun on October 22, 2018 at an event with Palestinian activists at the Lafede headquarters in Barcelona, ​​​​where he made the first contacts to get involved in the Palestinian Community of Catalonia and the Coalition Sufficient Complicity with Israel. And it ended at the end of 2020 when the police - similarly to the other undercover agents uncovered by The Direct– disappeared, claiming a change of job and the delicate health of his mother. However, according to the testimonies collected by the report, he maintained contact with the movements he had joined well into 2023.

The agent, who raised suspicions about what his environment had been like after the report was broadcast Infiltrators to the 30 minutes from TV3, was born in Madrid and explained that he came from a family with a mother from Madrid and a Palestinian father from the Gaza Strip. He also claimed to have a brother, but never gave too many details about his family. He said that he had landed in Barcelona for a sales job and that he had settled in a rented flat in Hospitalet de Llobregat. According to the investigation, he had an ID with a false identity, had an open account at Triodos Bank and signed up for a women's indoor football team from Eixample, Pony's FS, based at the Joan Miró Sports Centre.

As a member of the Palestinian Community, in February 2019 he participated in a leadership and social transformation program focused on the prevention of violent extremism, promoted by the Novact Institute of Nonviolence with the support of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD) of the Government of Catalonia. Novact, in fact, will explore the possible complaint of the facts due to the fact that the agent "fraudulently" benefited from a public subsidy under a false identity. The anti-repressive organization Alerta Solidaria has already announced that it will file a complaint.

The affected groups demand an investigation

"This is not an isolated case, it is a systematic practice of repression, which is why we demand that all infiltrations be investigated, that they do not go unpunished and that these practices be stopped," denounced all the affected groups in a joint manifesto. Representatives of the different spaces that suffered espionage read the text at a press conference this morning in Barcelona's Plaça del Rey, after the news was made public, and expressed their "frontal rejection of the repression of the State and the police forces." "In the face of repression, they will find us organized," they concluded.

Luca Gervasoni, from Novact, has denounced that this new infiltration operation - the fifth uncovered in the Catalan Countries - "promotes tools for the criminalization of social and political movements, thus limiting the ability to organize," while Clara Sánchez, from Endavant. "The State, whether the PP or the PSOE is in power, never hesitates to use violence to repress the rights of all," he said, warning that, just as this is not the first case of infiltration to be uncovered, it probably won't be the last.

CUP calls for action

From the Parliament, the CUP has stated that the "criminalisation" of popular movements shows that the State sees them as a "threat to the stability of the regime". "Infiltrations are becoming one of the most repugnant repressive mechanisms", lamented the deputy Pilar Castillejo in a press conference. Following this case, the anti-capitalist party has demanded the activation of the commission of inquiry into police infiltrations in the Parliament, which is only waiting for the green light from the Catalan chamber's table.

According to Castillejo, they want to summon the agents infiltrated in this and other cases, and also the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. In the last times that the Parliament has summoned a minister –for example, in the commission to investigate the Pegasus case–, the Catalan chamber has received the stand-down in response. Members of the Spanish government have excused themselves with a report from the Council of State which, according to their interpretation, only obliges them to give explanations before Congress, but not before the autonomous chambers.

On the other hand, the CUP has taken advantage of the opportunity to demand from the Government measures of "independent" control over the Mossos d'Esquadra and urges that the figure of the undercover agent be regulated immediately.