Three nuns who alleged they were being held in their convent against their will have been freed by Spain’s National Police.
The three, originally from India, have been living in a cloistered convent in the pilgrimage cite of Santiago de Compostela since the 1990s.
They entered the convent when they were still teenagers.
But on Saturday police arrived at the Convent of Madres Mercedarias and freed the women. They were responding to a complaint lodged with the immigration office that Indian women were being held against their will in “conditions of virtual slavery”.
The letter had come from a former nun at the convent who used the ruse of visiting a sick relative to leave, prompting Magistrate Ana López-Suevos to start an investigation.
The tip said the three nuns had wanted to renounce their vows and leave the convent, but were threatened “that they would be deported and returned to their families in India in disgrace," according to a statement seen by ElDiario.es
It explained that the three teenagers had expected to join the order in order to provide help to the needy, but instead they found an order devoted to silence and “exhausting work from six in the morning until nightfall within a stone prison”, ElDiario wrote.
An investigation is being conducted. Meanwhile the women are being looked after in a safe house in Madrid.
Comments
I fear you are a bit "off beam". "Freedom of speech is the right to communicate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship." (Wikipedia)
But it has it's limitations, particularly with regard to pornography and to hate speech. And if you can be bothered to read MalcolmH's post again, I think you'll see it's veering strongly towards the "hate" end of the spectrum. It's certainly not recommending any sort of freedom for the innocents he's attacking!
Well, I can't speak for others, but my "sensitivity" is that Malcolm's comments are inflammatory rubbish.
Yours aren't any better! It seems to me that the only thing you are correct about is "The UK is in the Union".
Just a few examples - a Brit knows that a McCann type missing child (missing pensioner / missing person) search is not kept secret in the UK. It is alien to have investigative secrecy as in Portugal - in the UK everyone will or can be alerted to help search. And everyone is perfectly entitled to be informed of the searches progress.
And the southern Spanish destroying or threatening to 'legal and licensed' British homes in their agricultural reserves is likewise alien. The most important spending in anyone's lives, and the owners health, lost directly through corrupt or incompetent local and regional administrators, politicians, lawyers, estate agents etc allowing the building to be erected over several months and then the later purchase to the Brit. to go ahead.
Mistreating cattle is alien to the average Brit !
Equally alien to a Brit. in todays European Union is continuing grievances held by Iberians over Gibraltar and The Pink Map! The UK is in the Union.
But getting back on topic, religion has an awful lot to answer for!
In your twisted mind, a goods news story from Spain becomes a vicious tirade against immigration (legal and legitimate in the case you quote) to the UK. You really ought to be terribly ashamed of yourself.
"Like the Portuguese themselves these are entirely alien species"? How racist can you get? I'm surprised your post wasallowed past the moderators on this site
MalcolmH - I hope that you do not actually live in Portugal, and I really hope I never have to meet you. Such revolting, vile, views ...
Shame on you.
So often showing how little has rubbed off on them during their stay in the UK on their return to Portugal. By writing totally misleading advice to UK incomers - that Portugal wants them here !