ALBA is getting ready for two major annual celebrations in New York and the Bay Area. The New York program--on May 14th, at the Eisner/Lubin auditorium on Washington Square, New York City (tickets here)--will feature Judge Baltasar Garzón, who will receive the first ALBA-Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, alongside Michael Ratner, director...
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Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish magistrate who has headed the effort to identify human rights violations during the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, will receive the first ALBA-Puffin International Award for Human Rights Activism at the ALBA annual reunion in New York City on May 14. (Press release; tickets; Facebook.)...
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Spain's national criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, has decided that the case for alleged torture perpetrated at the Guantánamo prison can go ahead. Judge Baltasar Garzón opened it in 2009, despite the resistance of the Attorney General and--as the WikiLeaks cables revealed--strong pressure from the US government and Congress. The case is conducted by...
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The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, together with the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights, has filed two submissions with the successor of Baltasar Garzón at Spain's Audiencia Nacional, who is investigating the accountability of US officials responsible for torture at Guantánamo Bay and other detention sites:

The first...
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The AP's Daniel Woolls reports:

A Spanish association of people searching for lost children or parents filed a petition Thursday with the attorney general to investigate allegations that newborns were stolen from their mothers and sold to other families for decades, including as recently as the mid-1990s. The petition was signed by around...
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Carol Rosenburg writes in the Miami Herald on the role played by Florida senator Mel Martínez in US efforts to influence Spanish investigations into torture at Guantánamo:

The cause for alarm at the U.S. Embassy was what a U.S. diplomat called a "well documented'' 12-inch-tall dossier compiled by a Spanish human rights...
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"Obama decided long ago to turn the page on the abuses and illegalities of the Bush administration," the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights states in a Huffington Post column on the revelations about US pressure on Spain's judiciary in relation to torture investigations;

The U.S. was particularly...
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In its broadcast today, Democracy Now! talked with Scott Horton (Harper's) about the revelation from the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables that the U.S. has actively tried to thwart Spanish investigations, by judge Garzón and others, involving the American government. Watch the segments here and here.
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In a curious game of judicial ping-pong, a Madrid judge has sent an important case back to the National Criminal Court, specifically to the department that was led by Judge Baltasar Garzón before his controversial suspension, and which is now headed by Judge Pablo Ruz, El País reports. The case, which involves the...
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Giles Tremlett reports for the Guardian:

In a stark reversal of roles, an Argentine judge has taken a step towards opening the first comprehensive investigation into the human rights abuses of General Franco's dictatorship in Spain. Judge María Servini has asked Spain to declare whether its...
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