Human rights, with memory. At Irídia, we want to highlight that together we build a collective memory that makes us who we are as a whole. Memory can be an ally that keeps us alive and strong enough to change what we don’t like. Our history and our streets are marked by repression, discrimination, violence, colonialism, borders, deprivation of liberty, censorship, fear… and by the people who have suffered them and who deserve truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition. But our spaces, and we ourselves, also hold memories of the victories of our grandmothers and our own, of what we share and of what we build together to choose how we want to live.
IRÍDIA FEST: A COMMITMENT TO BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH CULTURE
Irídia is a tool for memory and the defense of rights: we need to keep defending the right to protest, to express ourselves, to move freely, to be treated with dignity… We will respond collectively to intolerance, discrimination and institutional violence. Tools like the Support and Reporting Service allow us to stand up and build solutions. We have assisted more than 650 people since 2016, offering free legal and psychosocial support. We also take on legal representation in the most serious and/or emblematic cases.
Given the current political context, many cultural initiatives are denouncing a wide range of human rights violations around the world. All of these initiatives, many of them of very powerful artistic quality, are necessary and essential so that the stories they tell can be shared in other spaces, so that audiences can feel them, make them their own and later become part of a critical mass capable of changing laws and the course of politics.
It’s essential to show that there are empowering collective alternatives for confronting the radicalization of hate, by creating spaces for connection, community and celebration. IRÍDIA FEST grows out of this reflection, committed to developing and promoting culture, understood as an essential part of the historical defense of human rights, and to championing the role of art as a backbone for transformative ideas. The festival will take place on February 2 and 3 at Sala Paral·lel 62, with a live music lineup ranging from jazz to kuduro and reggaeton.
To develop and produce Irídia Fest, we’ve teamed up with Say It Loud, which, under the motto City - Culture - Community, is committed to the social economy and has spent 13 years championing the role of art in this sense. Say It Loud is a project of the Quesoni cooperative, which works in the cultural field in event management, programming, artistic services and technical services for sound, lighting and audiovisuals.
Thursday, February 2: Freedom First, jazz from death row
African American Keith Lamar, together with Catalan pianist Albert Marquès, has recorded a jazz album from prison, where he has been held in solitary confinement for 28 years and is awaiting execution in 2023 in the United States.
The event is part of the “Justice for Keith Lamar” campaign and, in collaboration with Taller de Músics, features a quintet made up of Keith Lamar himself reciting poetry from prison, Albert Marquès on piano, Erin Corine on vocals and flute, Manel Fortià on double bass and Marc Ayza on drums.
Through music and Keith Lamar’s words, the concert is a sensory and emotional journey that reflects on freedom through jazz and poetry.
Friday, February 3: concerts to dance and celebrate together
On Friday, the seats at Sala Paral·lel 62 disappear and the dance floor opens for a big Irídia-style party, with a national and international lineup to remember.
We’ll kick off the night with Hip Horns Brass Collective, a funk and hip hop brass band from Barcelona presenting their new project Brassvillain alongside Rodrigo Laviña, Anita Tijoux, Escandaloso Xpósito and Las Ninyas del Corro.
As our headliner, Irídia has chosen to innovate by bringing PONGO from Lisbon. With Angolan roots and formerly of Buraka Som Sistema, she brings to the dance floor a mix of kuduro and dancehall with touches of EDM, rhythm & blues and funk.
To close the night, Bellaquera Session takes the stage to spin reggaeton, with Piti Vaccari and Momobounce, so we can move to the rhythm of “perreo combativo, perreo consentido.”
Our Support and Reporting Service is the only one in Catalonia specialized in taking legal action on cases of institutional violence, and it’s completely free. It has a team of specialized lawyers and psychologists and has been doing this social work defending human rights for seven years.
In 2019 alone, it received 248 calls; in 2020, despite the pandemic, there were 186; and last year, in 2021, another 161. We are currently providing legal representation in 56 cases of police violence at protests and rights violations in the CIE (immigration detention center) or in prison, in public spaces or at police stations, in which 127 officers are under investigation: 118 police officers, 2 prison officers and 7 private security guards. Our goal is to change a reality we don’t accept: to do this, we fight to bring impunity to trial so that cases of police misconduct have consequences; we work to influence public policy so that it protects collective rights; and we partner with local and international organizations. We want to help raise the standards for protecting and guaranteeing human rights, guided by our values: rigor, independence and transparency.
So far, we’ve managed to identify the officer who fired the shot that cost Roger Español an eye on October 1 (1-O) and have him tried for a serious assault offense; to secure the conviction of the officer who broke a La Directa journalist’s finger while he was covering a protest; and of the officer who mistreated a young man at a police station. In addition, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) ruled in our favor and, for the first time, ordered a retrial of a case in which a Mossos d’Esquadra officer had been acquitted after hitting a man on the head with his baton, and the Constitutional Court (TC) ordered the reopening of the investigation into the case of the photojournalist who was hit by a foam projectile while working, which had been dismissed. We have also taken part in the Parliament of Catalonia’s Study Committee on the Policing Model, where we pointed out the shortcomings in the oversight mechanisms for the Mossos d’Esquadra, and we’ve accompanied people affected by police violence so their voices could be heard in the institutions. Finally, very soon we will file the first criminal complaint for torture at the Via Laietana police station during the Franco dictatorship: because we don’t want any act of violence to go unpunished.
Once again this year, this project is aimed at victims of institutional violence. Specifically, anyone who is assaulted by a police officer, a prison officer or a private security guard carrying out public order duties.
By contributing, you’ll be able to receive support if you face a situation of police violence, while also ensuring that other people receive this support too. Many people have no other way to access it, especially those in opaque spaces such as prisons or the CIE. What’s more, by contributing to the project and/or becoming a member, you’re helping sustain an essential service at a time when rights violations are on the rise.
The service currently operates throughout the province of Barcelona and coordinates with groups and organizations in other parts of Catalonia and Spain. We also carry out regular follow-up visits to places of deprivation of liberty, such as the Barcelona CIE and prisons in different parts of Catalonia.
Cases are also referred to us by other organizations, such as the University of Barcelona’s SIRECOVI, Barcelona City Council’s Office for Non-Discrimination, SOS Racismo and groups working for the right to housing. We also work in a network with Tanquem els CIEs, Migrastudium and the Ateneu de Memòria Popular, among others.
This month, Irídia celebrates 7 years! During this time, the organization and the team have grown and consolidated. We are 22 workers and a Board of 8 volunteers driving the project forward, with the support of volunteers and interns, organized into different areas:
The legal area is made up of 8 lawyers and 3 psychologists, and is coordinated by Anaïs Franquesa, a criminal lawyer specialized in defending human rights, with extensive experience in Spain and internationally.
The psychosocial area is part of the legal area, and its Board liaison is Irene Santiago, a psychologist with more than 15 years of experience in psychosocial support from a human rights defense approach.
The communications and advocacy area is made up of two journalists and three advocacy communications specialists, and is coordinated by Andrés G. Berrio, a lawyer with more than 10 years of experience in advocacy processes in this field.
We also have a technical area responsible for managing grants, finances, team coordination and relations with members.
The Board is made up of specialists in various areas related to Irídia’s work, such as Andreu Van den Eynde, an expert in strategic litigation; Aina Estarellas, an expert in forensic and legal medicine; Carmen Juares, an activist in the field of domestic work and a social worker; Irene Santiago, a social psychologist; and Jordi de Senespleda, a lawyer who collaborates on CIE cases. Its members also include Ester Quintana, an activist who lost an eye after being hit by a rubber bullet ten years ago; Blanca Garcés, a researcher at CIDOB and an expert in migration; and Jordi Bosch, who holds a law degree and has extensive experience in Catalan civil society.
At Irídia, we also work with an intersectional feminist perspective and methodology, making decisions democratically and placing care, both our own and that of society as a whole, at the center.
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