Defending the Right to Know: Data Journalism and the Spanish Civil War

Do you know how your family members experienced life during the Spanish Civil War and the post-war period? Are you aware if they suffered reprisals? Perhaps they never wanted to talk to you about the subject? Have you ever wondered why?

The number of mortal victims of the Spanish Civil War stands at around half a million people according to Paul Preston. One out of every four of these was victim of a forced disappearance and is still missing today. Besides the deaths due to bombardments and executions, there were many forms of repression and deprivation of freedom. Among them, concentration camps (14 in Catalonia), prisons and battalions of working soldiers in which, according to data from 1940, there were over 150,000 people doing forced labour at the same time.

It is still very difficult today to find accurate information on all those victims of the Civil War and the Franco Regime. The documents are dispersed across a multitude of archives whether military or from other areas. But we do have the right to know.

The association Innovation and Human Rights (ihr.world) has been working for over a year, searching for and integrating data. It is now presenting the result and the search methodology it has used to create a centralised database, as advocated by the United Nations. It also creates contents exploring diverse aspects of the conflict and the Franco regime, explaining stories and rescuing documentation from oblivion.

It is an interdisciplinary team: journalism, IT, history and design. It has the support of the Association of Archivers and Document Managers of Catalonia. At this meeting, people from different spheres who have accompanied the creation process will be participating. In defence of the right to know, recording and reconciliation, and in order to avoid it ever happening again.