Retro Raunch Revisit

H A P P Y  B I R T H D A Y  T O
SEP 27, 1975: In Spain, capital punishment is carried out for the last time when 5 men from left-wing terrorist groups -- 2 from the Basque separatist ETA, and 3 from the anti-Francoist Marxist–Leninist 'Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front' (FRAP) -- were executed by firing squads after having been convicted & sentenced by military tribunals for the murder of policemen & civil guards. Spain was Western Europe's last dictatorship (after the junta regimes in Portugal & Greece both fell in 1974) still under autocratic rule and had been unpopular & internationally isolated since post-WWII because of its leader Francisco Franco's previous fascist relationship with Germany & Italy as he successfully with their co-operation had overthrown a democratically elected government in the Civil War of 1936-39. In Aug 1975, new Spanish legislation imposed harsher punishments for terrorists & sympathizers which the European Parliament condemned as infringing on human rights, and called on the EEC (European Economic Community) to suspend relations with the country. With the various killings committed by the 5 men and their arrests, they were found guilty & given the death penalty. Their lawyers failed to appeal the verdicts and their executions sparked worldwide protests & mass demonstrations, hostile diplomatic criticism, attacks on Spanish embassies, and the withdrawl of ambassadors of 15 European countries. In Oct, a pro-government march was held in Madrid which state TV claimed that 1 million people had taken part. It was Franco's last public appearance as he addressed the crowd to denounce Communist subversion. He died in Nov and no further executions followed. In Dec 1978, the Spanish Constitution abolished the death penalty for all civil crimes and in Oct 1995, the Spanish parliament banned capital punishment entirely. The families of the executed appealed to the Constitutional Court of Spain to have the men's convictions overturned but their applications were first rejected as inadmissable, and rejected again by the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds of not having the power to deal with the cases prior to the 1978 Constitution coming into effect, and that Spain had not been a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1975.