‘We are seeing the same methods used during the [Franco] dictatorship and we are seeing them evolve’
A smiling woman with blonde hair stares out from posters engulfed in flames. Her face disintegrates into ashes as protesters, one by one, drop the sheets of paper onto a small fire outside the police station in the city of Girona, 100 kilometres north of Barcelona, in the autonomous region of Catalonia. A line of riot police officers, guns strapped to their chests, observe the scene. They appear unfazed by the small act of rebellion.
It’s a sweltering evening in July, and hundreds of people have gathered for a procession led by the latest victims of Spain’s escalating ‘policia infiltrat’ (police infiltration) scandal. Just one week ago, the woman whose picture was being burned had been known among Girona’s progressive movements as Maria Perelló, a student and committed activist. But that wasn’t her true identity.
Maria was in fact an undercover police officer with the Spanish National Police Corps. During her three-year deployment she embedded herself in the city’s popular movements, making close friendships, and entering a long-term romantic relationship with prominent activist Óscar Campos, with whom she lived for over a year. The police spy took her deception to extreme heights, enlisting her own mother to play a role in the operation.
‘I cannot find the words to describe the pain you have caused us’, Campos says, addressing the procession with a message to the woman he had thought of as the love of his life: ‘But I can say I’m proud of having loved you, and cried as much as I have. Because this is what sets us apart… As of today, the city of Girona, which has taken care of you, which has embraced and loved you as if you were its child, declares you persona non grata. You are not welcome.’
Some people in the crowds are crying, others have their fists clenched. The infiltration is viewed not just’ – Girona infiltrated.
