Novact’s Statement on the Police Infiltration Case Published by Directa

An investigation conducted by Directa.cat has revealed today, March 5, 2025, that a National Police officer infiltrated social movements using a false identity to participate in a Novact training program between February and March 2019 and maintained contact with the organization until March 2023. The Novact Institute for Nonviolence is an NGO operating in more than 17 countries, including Catalonia, working in defense of Peace and Human Rights. 

The same National Police officer also infiltrated the Comunitat Palestina de Catalunya, the Coalició Prou Complicitat amb Israel, the organization Endavant OSAN, and the Casal Popular Tres Voltes Rebel. This case is not isolated: since June 2022, nine other undercover agents have been identified infiltrating social movements in four Spanish cities (Barcelona, Girona, Valencia, and Madrid), illustrating an increasing framework of criminalization of protest and reduction of civic space. 

The training in which the agent infiltrated was an experiential, theoretical, and practical program aimed at fostering social leadership in the prevention of violent extremism. The Rizoma (Roots) Training Program was funded by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD). Rizoma brought together young people from organizations, social movements, and institutions in Catalonia with the goal of building a network of trust among actors who are often in conflict but share a common vision of preventing violent extremism. The published news fosters a state of suspicion and a climate of uncertainty that makes the work of mediation and the promotion of complexity significantly more difficult. As an NGO defending peace and human rights, Novact carries out public, audited, and institutionally coordinated activities. The program, its contents, participants, and associated expenses have been and continue to be publicly available. 

We find it relevant to highlight three events that coincided with the agent’s infiltration: (1) Four months before the infiltrated agent participated in the training, in October 2018, Novact’s Director, Luca Gervasoni, was summoned to testify before the Catalan Parliament’s Commission investigating the August 17-18, 2017 attacks. He defended a shift in counterterrorism policies towards the prevention of all forms of violent extremism. (2) The presence of the infiltrated agent in Novact’s training also coincided with the establishment, together with other human rights organizations, of the International Trial Watch platform. This platform managed and facilitated the presence of 61 observers who monitored, analyzed, and reported to the public on the Supreme Court trial against Catalan political and social leaders accused of rebellion, sedition, embezzlement, and disobedience in 2019. (3) We continued our work in defending Peace and Human Rights in Syria, Western Sahara, Iraq, and Palestine, among others. 

In response to today’s news, we declare: 

• Our solidarity with all individuals, organizations, institutions, and spaces of social and political mobilization that have been affected by the infiltration of a police officer using a false identity. 

• This operation serves as a tool for criminalizing social and political movements, restricting their ability to organize, violating the right to freedom of association, and creating an environment of uncertainty and insecurity for all those who wish to actively participate in social organizations. 

• We affirm that dedicating police resources and time to infiltrate a National Police officer among people working for human rights is an operation as unnecessary as it is abusive in any rule-of-law state and democracy. 

• We demand the development of effective mechanisms for police oversight and transparency within the State’s security forces. The Franco-era Official Secrets Law cannot continue to shield the secrecy of operations that directly affect citizens’ fundamental rights. 

• We demand that the Ministry of the Interior and political and police authorities explain the purpose of the infiltration, the crimes being investigated, whether they had judicial authorization, and to whom the collected information was delivered. 

• Furthermore, Novact reaffirms its commitment to exploring all legal avenues to demand an investigation into these serious events and to establish political and judicial accountability. 

The news we have received today has deeply hurt us, and we feel especially pained for those who have placed their trust in us. Today, we feel that gathering, associating, and building bridges between organizations and institutions has become more uncertain and unsafe. We will continue working in defense of rights and in the development of tools for societal transformation through social organization and nonviolent action.