Torture

Despite these precautions, however, news began to filter into the universities. Those of us who were still free spread the news of what the police of the "Social brigade" had been doing with our colleagues. Some of them were being tortured under interrogation, and although the secrecy under which political prisoners are dealt with in Spain makes it difficult to report accurately on this matter, if a survey were to be made there is no doubt that atrocious details would be un covered.

The events were met with outspoken indignation, especially in the common room of the faculty of philosophy and letters at the University of Madrid. This is the traditional meeting place of the most active university students, where politics, literature, science and art are hotly disputed, far from the classrooms where official knowledge is imparted under the patronage of the regime. Most of those arrested were well known to the students and highly esteemed. In those student elections which are permitted, many had been elected as delegates despite a defamatory campaign against them and personal threats. The most important of their claims had been for an independent student congress, with delegates elected directly by the students themselves. The congress was to be held outside the Sindicato Espanol Universitario, which all students rightly regard as a means of control by the Government, and not as a representative organisation.