INSULT TO FRANCO'S POLITICAL POLICE
Carlos Zayas, a e9~year-old Madrid hotel manager, was placed on trial October 25 for a novel crime; namely, calling Franco's political police what they are -- "political police." .
‘On June 8, 1962, Zayas was arrested by plainclothesmen of the. "social brigade," (this body was formerly called the "“politico-social brigade," but Franco for some reason decided he. preferred a less euphonious name. ) Zayas was tried on the charge of maintaining relations with Belgian minis# ter Spaak, the Italian socialist Nenni, Labour party members of Parliament and members of the International Commission of Jurists. Such associations were to be expected, since Zayas was one of the founders of the Socialist Teachers Association, He was sentenced to two years in prison.
When Paul VI became pope last summer, Zayas was one of those whose sentence was commuted in honor of the occasion,
But he soon slipped back into his criminal ways. Back at his desk in . the hotel, he told some of his employees that he had not been arrested for a crime but for his political ideas and that the agents who picked him up were "political police."
A stool pigeon tipped off the authorities and Zayas was soon brought to justice for his foul insult to the political police. The prosecuting attorney is demanding a three-month sentence for the new crime.
The three-month sentence may not sound too stiff for a "repeater" in. fascist Spain but.it also means that Zayas, if. convicted, will have to serve out his previous sentence, . Under Franco youtd better watch what kind of language you use in
referring to the political police,
we Bm
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