Access and declassification of documents.

The International Congress of Archives and Human Rights organized by Archivists Without Borders, the City Council of Sarrià de Ter (Girona) and the Provincial Council of Girona on 2, 3 and 4 October 2008 reflected on the subject of access to and declassification of public documents. The Congress was attended by several experts from the international field to discuss the projects that were being developed in different countries of the world in order to make accessible and available to the courts, researchers, historians, jurists and the general public, documentation classified as secret. These documents are of extraordinary importance in the investigation of crimes against humanity, committed by states in convulsive situations of changes from democratic regimes to dictatorial regimes or vice versa, in war conflicts, in genocides, etc.

The recovery of the archives of the military dictatorships of South America was discussed, the European case of the public opening of the Stasi archives, the name by which the former police of the GDR is known, the Freedom Information Act of the USA and the declassification of documents carried out by the National Security Archive; it was also discussed how the information was collected and obtained for the production of the TV3 documentary “The Lost Children of Francoism”, as well as the organization of information from the intelligence services, security and defense of states, etc.