In Spain, the White Terror (also known as Represión Franquista) was the series of acts of politically motivated violence, rape, and other crimes committed by the Nationalist movement during the Spanish Civil War (17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939) and during Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1 October 1936 – 20 November 1975). The violence carried out in the rebel zone was carried out by the military, the Civil Guard and the fascist Falange in the name of the regime and legitimized by the Catholic Church. There were some elements in common between Republican and Nationalist repression. Large numbers were killed in the course of removals of prisoners from prisons, the so-called sacas, and many others were killed after being "taken for a ride" (paseo).[30] Most of the victims of these sacas and paseos were executed by death squads stemming from the trade unions and political party militias (CNT, UGT and PCE militias among the republicans and Falange and Carlist militias among the Nationalists), which were easily infiltrated by gangs of criminals. This investigation proceeded on the basis of the notion that this mass-murder constituted a Crime Against Humanity which cannot be subject to any amnesty or statute of limitations (as a result, in May 2010, Mr. Garzón was accused of violating the terms of the general amnesty and his powers as a jurist have been suspended pending further investigation).
