Many of us have been in Spain.
Most of us know the Spanish warm sun and the wonderful nice beaches.
But most of the tourists don't know that the Spanish courts accept false accusations.
In family cases with clashes, the Spanish courts accept false accusations if presented
by women.
Every day, 400 women in Spain go to the court and present 400 accusations against men.
Behind the Spanish holiday paradise and the friendly hospitality of the Spanish people,
you will find a national tragedy hidden.
A tragedy that is growing worse day by day, unbalance between men and women.
The unbalanced first manifested itself in 2004 when Spain got a new government under
the leadership of Jose Luis Zapatero from the Socialist Party PSOE.
Jose Luis Zapatero and his government drew up a new law, gender violence law, with the
aim to protect women.
In practice, the result of this law is that when a woman accuses a man of domestic violence,
the man is immediately declared guilty and he has to demonstrate that he is innocent.
A woman only has to press the button and call the police.
The police do not ask any questions or undertake any investigation.
A woman shall not present any proof or evidence.
Only her word is sufficient.
The man goes directly to prison.
After 48 hours in prison, the man appears before the court.
Some experts have warned the government about the consequences of this law.
One of them is Maria Sanauja, who is a judge in the regional court in Barcelona.
Maria Sanauja is a judge in the regional court in Barcelona.
The judge Maria Sanauja's warning has been confirmed.
On a daily basis, 400 accusations are made and 90% of these are false.
Every day, Spanish women present 350 false accusations against men.
Many people are involved and the protests from fathers and grandparents are increasing.
More than 30 associations protest against the law and the practice of the Spanish cause.
We asked Francisco Zugasti why he created the association Projusticia.
Zugasti was not allowed to speak in the court.
He was not allowed to ask questions.
He was not allowed to present any witnesses.
He lost all rights to see his two children.
And the sentence was pronounced before the trial.
Another pioneer against the law of gender violence is the Spanish journalist and writer
Jose Diaz Herrera.
He wrote the book The Castrated Man.
His book is a summary over his study of more than 3,000 cases from Spanish courts records.
He wrote that gender violence law is like a gun pointed against men.
In 2005, 160,000 men were arrested.
We asked a Spanish specialist in Family Matters of his assessment of the gender violence law.
The law of gender violence only protects women.
They were arrested for 48 hours in a prison cell, even though there is no evidence.
In the Spanish situation, instead of the agreements, what is being promoted is the confrontation
between the ex-conjuges, giving place to more than emotional situations, especially
the children who are most affected in these cases.
The Spanish Ministry of Equality of Treatment also has a sign on its main entrance, with
women's institute and the ministry led by the 31-year-old minister Bibiana Aido takes
many commercial steps to demonstrate that the father is bad and the mother the good part.
The ministry makes it clear for everybody, also for the children.
The thousands of victims among Spanish men nicknamed the ministry the Castle of Feminazes.
A women's institute associated to equality, as indicated on the main door to the ministry,
is of course not very credible.
Anyway, people are diplomatic and constructive and the word Feminazes is only perceived under
the surface.
So yes, the minister asked
and they can't be treated as justifiable
the rights of the child,
so much so that they are totally mistreated
if they don't intervene properly.
Well, look, there is no justice for the parents.
Because automatically the shared custody
is given to the mother.
Without looking if the mother is more suitable than the father
or if the two have an identity
because they have to get married.
They can teach the children why not later.
Is it correct that in the law of gender violence
there is no presumption of innocence?
Let's see, in the law of violence
exactly what it establishes
is the presumption of the crime of the denuncer.
Therefore, a conciliation of rights is produced
because practically what the man has to do
denuncing is to show that it is innocent.
Why don't judges pursue false denunctions?
Well, they don't pursue it for two reasons.
One, for dejadez
and two, for a problem that is inserted
in gender ideology itself.
Because here it is part of the premise
that of course, that gender crimes
are crimes committed in the domestic field
and therefore it is very difficult to prove
if it existed or did not exist.
Therefore, it is understood that there are times
in which it has to be solved because there are no evidence.
Of course, that is supposed to be a tremendous evil
when it comes to interpreting the law.
Because, however, if there are cases,
I recognize that there are cases
in which it is very difficult to prove if it existed
or did not exist and what is denounced.
But there are other cases where it is possible to show
that what is denounced is false
and the negligence is absolute.
It is absolute because here it is an ideological issue,
which is not a matter of legal principles.
The case of Paco is one example
of how the Spanish court system handles family cases.
His case is one out of the thousands.
I separated from my mother,
although she was not married,
when our daughter was only one year old.
After the separation, we shared the guard
and custody of our daughter
and I could see her every day, being with her.
Paco discovered that his little daughter
of three years old was left unattended.
Paco went to court with substantive evidence
from the school, psychologist and detectives
and asked for the custody.
Immediately, his ex-partner presented 14 false accusations
against Paco.
One of them was horrible.
A false accusation of incest.
She never presented a medical report.
Just the words from the mother were enough.
The family court rejected Paco's witnesses
and the court forensic reports demonstrate
that the minor has never been abused.
The judge did not ask Paco one single question
and he could not defend himself.
The judge followed the Spanish procedure.
The family court gave the custody to the mother.
The female judge allowed Paco to see his daughter
at a meeting point.
All visits to his daughter were under the supervision
of a social assistant, watching him at a distance of two metres.
In many cases, men are not interrogated by the judges.
They cannot present witnesses either.
Is it correct that only the word of the woman
is enough to impute the man?
We are doing just the opposite of what we did a few years ago.
Before we sent the women to the house
and we did not pick them up on many occasions.
We are now dealing with the men
who, I want to believe, are always heard by the judge
because, of course, there is an obligation.
And here, if that is what you are saying,
it would be with the convenience of the lecturers
because the judge has an obligation to listen to the imputed
and should do so in all cases.
And the state should never allow the children to be used
as a weapon to redress
because the damage we are causing them
is terrifying and in some dimensions
that we are going to see the social problem
in not much time and then I don't know how we are going to fix it.
Jose Antonio in Seville is another of thousands of men
who has felt the gender violence law on his own body.
He was sent to prison for 11 months
because of his ex-wife's false accusations.
I had a 10-woman after separation.
At the age of 2, I started to admit false accusations.
But then, the order came and I was in the same place.
And then, after his sentence,
after the sentence came and I was in the same place,
I had already spent the order and I was in prison.
After having been in prison, I was in the same place.
After four years of waiting,
the forensic medical expert proved
proved that his ex-wife had damaged herself only to accuse him.
He has given a value to the word of an absolutely excessive woman.
But in recent years, the word of a woman in Spain is equivalent to the truth.
And this is a barbarity, like a temple.
What rights do men have?
Men have no rights.
For men who stay on the street, there are no housing, no protection,
no economic assistance, no compensation system,
no therapeutic treatment systems.
Of course, this has caused psychological damage to many men,
because they are at night with a complaint about something that they have not committed.
And as women have, if they want, psychologists at their disposal,
the Spanish Ministry of Equality and the Women's Institute offer a range of support to the supposedly maltreated woman, urgent emergency relief, financial backup, job offers, etc.
On the contrary, there is absolutely no help for the approximately 125,000 men that go to prison every year.
The grandparents protest.
What is the reason for this?
It is all the pressure that drives the judges to be afraid and therefore make an application of the law, sometimes in a very automatic way.
And this has caused damage, because the police have proceeded to arrest thousands of men with very few evidence, with very few indications,
and the judges have put them in freedom, but dictating that order of removal.
The judge does not remember any measure, but it has already been 48 hours and there has been no legal authorization or any type of indication.
And once he leaves prison, he cannot go back to his home, because his wife and his partner take him back to present another complaint.
The Spanish government observatory, regarding gender violence, shows in their report that there have been 142,000 accusations against men,
just in the year 2008, and 13% of the accusations end up with a conviction.
What about the other accusations?
If 13% were guilty, what about the 87%?
The judge Francisco Serrano, from the family court in Seville, declares that only 9.7% end up with a conviction.
Francisco Serrano has warned about the unfair aspects of the gender violence law, and he compares the situation with the Guantanamo detention base.
He considers the new proposal from the government to make it easier to discontinue the relationship between a father and child as some kind of holocaust.
Does this law also violate the Spanish laws?
I don't think it violates the fundamental rights. It can be discussable, and many of us can understand that it does,
but the act of banning fundamental rights is produced in the police and judicial practice.
There is a presumption of guilt, and in doubt it is stopped, and in a few hours, and without much investigation, the case is brought to the judge.
As they are arrested, in a few hours, and without much investigation, it is decided that this is what it has to do.
And to impute someone a crime, and to investigate it minimally, with a previous character, is what hinders the rights of people, because human beings have the right to prison.
Outside Madrid, we meet with Guadalupe de la Fuente, who is president for the association Grandparents Separated from their Grandchildren.
What reasons did they take you to create the association of grandparents separated from their grandchildren?
Well, after seeing the traumatic separation of my son, and seeing how the judges acted, and talking to more people who were not only in the environment,
but also at the level of work that we talked about the issue of separations, and seeing what situations the children were in,
we were forced to somehow create the association, not only to defend the right of grandparents, but also the right of children, to see their grandparents and their whole family.
What is happening to the children after the separations?
All those who, due to economic issues, or due to the issues of respect, are obviously using children as a currency of change.
So the situation they are living in is very complicated, very complicated.
The Spanish people are in despair and feel powerless, but they are willing to tell their story to those willing to listen to them.
Hello, why have I come to the demonstration?
To accompany my son who is in this situation, I can't see the children.
Because the mother of the children is my son, I denounce her, I curse her, and it is completely false.
And does she have a visit?
We don't have a visit, they don't leave us.
We went to school in the time of the recruitment,
that the ladies are very kind, very affectionate with each other,
and in those minutes we can be with the children during the recruitment,
some days a week, not every day.
So many grandmothers and grandmothers are currently prevented from seeing their grandmothers.
Well, it is very complicated to tell you a specific number, but for you to have an idea,
you just have to multiply by two the divorces.
That is, the paternal grandmothers are all involved in some way.
And what has happened with that law, that some feminist groups have appropriated it as theirs,
and they are making a fraudulent use of that law.
That is, they are accusing men of a gender violence that does not exist.
That is, I think it was talked about this year of a 90% false denunciation,
and that is the only thing that is being done, is to punish the judges, to impute to people who have not committed any crime,
and that those children have been given away from all that family that is generally the paternal family.
Do you think that some judges are acting in a wrong way?
Yes, of course, because we are heir to that tradition,
and therefore it is being said that they are the mothers who must always be taking care of the children.
In fact, there is a sector that is called feminist,
which I think are heirs of the Catholic tradition, of the female section,
of the previous political regime, which was not really feminism,
which pushed this, that women stayed at home to take care of children,
and that was our fundamental role in history.
It's difficult to understand why Spain accepts the destruction of millions of people's right for a family life.
It's difficult to understand the government's motive.
The Spanish newspaper Il País has published the statistics for murdered women by the hands of their partners or ex-partners in 2003.
Spain has the lowest number of murdered women in comparison with other European countries.
Let's take a look at the result of the PSOE government's five-year period.
In 2004, 48 women were murdered by their partner or ex-partner.
In 2005, 60.
In 2006, 68.
In 2007, 71.
And in 2008, 69.
The gender violence law has not changed the figures downwards for murdered women.
If we estimate the figures of destruction of the Spanish population,
bearing in mind the variable statistics that exist, the damage is shocking.
More than three million adults and children have suffered under PSOE's gender violence law.
With this situation, what do you expect for Spain, currently and for the future?
The violence law, the 2003 criminal code, has been a failure.
It's so evident that after five years, the situation has not only improved,
but it has even worsened.
I affirm that it has worsened.
There are more mistreated women, we don't have time to protect them,
and we are also mistreating thousands of children, thousands of grandmothers and grandmothers,
and thousands of parents.
Therefore, we have not solved a problem and we have worsened a situation,
because now we have more of a problem.
Why have you come to the demonstration?
Because I want my daughter to be with her father as well as her mother.
And what is your current situation?
The current situation, like the one of many Spaniards, is that we are separated
and these children are in legal custody.
And well, we have four days of each 30, we can see our own children,
without being able to take care of their education.
I understand that they are missing, the same as they are missing us.
There is discrimination in Spanish judges.
Of course, the Spanish judges are elementary,
they have 95, 97% of the custody in the family processes and they are the grandmothers.
And what the family judges are doing,
is almost always considering custody of women,
and I believe that this is not a reward, but a condemnation,
because if women take care of the children's education,
of practically all responsibility,
we do not have more time and more possibilities
to have personal and professional spaces
that are absolutely essential to be a person.
The children, the first thing is that they are deprived of half of their family.
Not only the father, the father,
most of the custody is given to the mother,
therefore we speak in general terms of the father,
the one who is deprived of his children,
but the grandparents, the uncles, the cousins,
in the end, whatever happens.
The Spanish court system gives women the freedom to persecute the man.
Well, I have been here for six years,
because when I separated from my ex-wife,
the justice, without taking into account the economic possibilities that she had
and I had, she left me in the ruin
and I did not have any other choice than to come and live in a container.
Why is the situation like this?
Well, it is like this, because in Spain,
because of circumstances X,
that each one has its own theory,
it has been inserted very strongly and very bluntly
and has managed to conquer spaces of power,
an ideology of gender,
which in the end is the hatred of the man.
And that ideology of gender,
which has been conquering spaces of power,
is the one that is causing this problem
that in other parts of Europe does not understand,
it cannot be understood.
Ten years after his divorce,
Iofimiano still fights against his ex-wife's false accusations.
Right now I am charging €800, €820 monthly
and with that I can not afford to pay a rent of a floor that can worth €700
or things like that, so I can not.
And I am also paying lawyers for false complaints that he is putting on me.
I am paying €300 monthly for lawyers.
His ex-wife presented eight false accusations.
He won six of the cases brought before the court
and two are still pending.
Well, from the separation,
they put a pension for a younger son that I did not have,
my younger daughter was 30 years old,
of 100,000 assets.
So, when I told the lawyer that I did not have younger children,
they put them on my ex-wife,
my ex-wife,
because I put the marriage to her name,
she is multimillionaire.
No matter how we look at the outcome of José Luis Zapatero's reign,
with the intent to build a better Spain with the law on gender violence,
it is clear that it ended up as a failure.
The damage is done.
Automatically we may ask the question,
is it correct that the real motive for the PSOE government
is that the feminists can lead a revenge action against the male party
and simultaneously destroy the traditional family relationships?
However, the Ministry of Equality and the Women's Institute continue their work.
The Minister, Bibiana Aida, has opened new courtrooms for gender violence
and today Spain has 91 new courtrooms, only to receive the many accusations.
However, what is clear is that this law can violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
In various articles, the 8th, the 6th, the 14th,
because there are no equitable processes,
the processes are very slow,
causing many times the contact between parents and children,
until the criminal issue is resolved,
because it is not respected at the beginning of equality.
I understand that it is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Do you think that in this case Spain is violating human rights?
I think that yes, in recent years we have not respected,
we have not guaranteed the fundamental rights of people.
In family cases?
Especially in family cases.
With no rights, the man has to pass through the avenging court
and he will be punished automatically.
He is guilty until he proves that he is innocent.
And in all cases, negotiation is not possible.
Thank you very much.
