The Model cultural Center hosts the exhibition " imprisoned for their conscience”

 BARCELONA-SPAIN

The Model cultural Center hosts the exhibition " imprisoned for their conscience”

The Model hosts the exhibition on the decades of conscientious objectors of Jehovah's witnesses who were incarcerated for their refusal to do military service during the seventies and seventies. The show " incarcerated for their conscience” focuses on the lives of seventeen young people who remained firm in their refusal to carry weapons.

Jehovah's witnesses base their set of beliefs and concepts on their interpretation of the Bible, which they consider its exclusive source of reference in doctrinal matters. Among many of their beliefs, they reject the use of weapons and are neutral in military and political conflicts. For Christian Witnesses of Jehovah, weapons, wars, and conflicts are incompatible with the love ethic of Jesus ' teachings. Thus, Jehovah's witnesses became the first conscientious objectors.

Since mid-October, the old LA Model Prison in Barcelona offers an exhibition on the conscientious objection to military service. Few people today know that in the sixty-seventh and sixteenth centuries of the past, nearly a thousand young Christian Witnesses of Jehovah's witnesses were imprisoned for their conscientious objectionability to military service. It is also little known that the sacrifice of these young people has contributed to the development of civil rights in Spain and Catalonia. Albert Balcells, professor of Contemporary History at the UAB, said:”the conscientious objection, initiated heroically by the Christian Witnesses of Jehovah, from the end of the fifty years, was a crime punishable by imprisonment until 1984, when social support was legalized and established."

This poignant exhibition, in which the Barcelona City Council has collaborated, aims to bring to know the stories and testimonies of these young people. Of the nearly a thousand conscientious objectors to Jehovah's witnesses, forty passed through the prison of the model of Barcelona. The exhibition " imprisoned for their conscience” focuses on the lives of eighteen of those young people, not without first evoking historical illusions that remained firm in their refusal to use arms in the decades of the Thirty and the fifties.

The imposing scene of the exhibition, the LA Model Prison of Barcelona, is a well-preserved historical building that served as a civil penal until the year 2017, and still retains its expensive prison, but has become a cultural center and headquarters of several exhibitions. Among its thick walls, the visitor imagines what those young, peaceful and law-abiding people must have heard, who had led useful and productive lives, being separated from relatives and friends and being locked up next to criminals, murderers and rapists. One of the objectors, Jose Luis mug said:”I still remember the sound of the door closing in on me and the screams during the night."

Access is free, but all visitors who want it can enjoy a guided tour of a tour with nine points of interest, divided into four topics that highlight, respectively, what it means to be an object of conscience, how it was the arrival in prison of these young people, what helped them endure the hardships of life in prison, and what they felt when they were released. Guided tours are done in Spanish and Catalan, with some sessions in English, French and sign language in Spanish.

The content is highly didactic and invites personal reflection. It includes numerous visual displays, such as large format panels, posters and grilled material, which highlight different scenes from the objects ' lives. Brief legends tell their story and the feelings they experienced, and describe what helped them resist the pressures they were subjected to and the lessons they learned. Different objects and utensils help the visitor to imagine their daily routine. Four flat-screen monitors placed in strategic locations play video clips with interviews with some of those objects, today mostly septuagenarian. The contents have been organized in such a way as to make it difficult for the visitor to relate the experience of the unjust condemnation suffered by these young witnesses to the high moral and ethical values they defended. These young objectors, without pretension, gave form to some of the civil rights enjoyed by today's society. As Catalan sociologist Joan Estruch said in a radio interview, “the Spanish society is always owed to the Christian Witnesses of Jehovah.”

The exhibition can be visited until December 16, 2023.

https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/oficina-afers-religiosos/es/noticia/la-model-acoge-la-exposicion-empresonats-per-la-seva-consciencia_1339654?fbclid=IwAR35slsjELdyipbz3tOWyuCMKHCecnDGTLBLZMAKWsY7l2fVZOhoqwjHT6g