"It felt like an eternity," says 17-year-old police assault victim

Just 17 years old, Katerina's eyes fill with tears when she recounts the assault she suffered at the hands of anti-riot officers last Thursday in Madrid's Calle de Atocha.

The video showing how police slapped and beat her and another youngster - despite neither of them displaying any aggressive behavior - is all over the internet and has prompted police headquarters to open an internal investigation into whether officers acted disproportionately during protests against the public cost of the pope's visit to the capital for World Youth Day (WYD) last week.

Charges by National Police during the secular demonstration in Puerta del Sol last Wednesday night left eight arrested and 11 injured, with further incidents of high-handedness reported at later rallies.

Katerina was among the 200 people attending a 15-M movement gathering in the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid on Tuesday to speak about last week's assaults and decide whether to make a collective complaint against the police's actions. She says she is going to go on attending all 15-M events, though she is not going to go "looking" to be assaulted again. "You experience it like an eternity," she explained. "I have seen the video and I know it was 30 seconds, but it seemed an awful lot of time to me. I only thought about wanting it to end."

The events leading up to the incident recorded on the video began last Thursday evening when Katerina attended the rally held in the Puerta del Sol to protest against the heavy-handed policing of the previous night.

The pope was already in Madrid and one of the major events of the WYD celebrations was underway in Cibeles. After its conclusion, the police restricted access to Sol and enclosed the protestors in the square. Some of the WYD pilgrims approached and were rebuked by the demonstrators. One of the most tense moments occurred when a group of Carlists confronted the protestors, causing the police to intervene.

At around 10pm the police drove the demonstrators from the center of the square towards Calle de Carretas. Katerina said she was paralyzed by nerves and that was the reason they hit her for the first time.

The assault recorded in the video occurred a short while later in Calle de Atocha. Katerina admits she rebuked the officers: "I shouted that they were violent." And they immediately recognized her from before. "The chief, the one who slapped me, is the one who asked the others, 'Is it this bitch?'" They hit her in the face and in the hip and hit her friend Luis Miguel, who carried her away, in the thigh and back. Both are going to file complaints.

Theirs may be the most high-profile incident, but it is far from the only one. On Tuesday morning in the Plaza de Oriente a group of journalists complained they had also been the object of attacks by officers while covering the protests. Faced with the large number of cases, the 15-M movement has decided to create a specific group to deal with the problems relating to the assaults.

The National Police were operating under the order they always receive in these situations: only employ violence when necessary and as a last resort, but something clearly failed. Now the officers responsible could be found guilty of a serious misdemeanor, punishable by a suspension from duty or even dismissal.

On Monday, the chief and a deputy inspector of the anti-riot unit who allegedly beat Katerina appeared before the internal investigation examiner, who will decide this week whether to open a disciplinary procedure against the officers. Other agents from the same unit appeared before the investigation on Tuesday.

The main SUP police union condemned the actions of the officers who appear in the images posted on the internet. "They have infringed the principles of police conduct," they said via a statement.

Along with the other two major unions, the UFP and the CEP, it has asked to be cleared of responsibility for the charges.

Amnesty International also condemned the "indiscrimate" police attacks and has asked the government delegate in Madrid, María Dolores Carrión, for a guarantee that there will an "effective" and "exhaustive" investigation into the matter.

Members of the opposition Popular Party have en masse backed the forcible breaking up of the secular rallies. Most active have been Madrid regional premier Esperanza Aguirre; her advisor Regina Plañiol; Mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón; the regional secretary for education, Franciso Granados, and the ombudsman for minors, Arturo Canalda. The latter has opened an official investigation into whether young WYD pilgrims were threatened or assaulted in Sol. Little or nothing was spoken about the young secular protestors who were admonished by Catholics during the clashes.

Government spokesman and Public Works Minister José Blanco came out in defense of the police's actions, stating that he thought there had been nothing excessive.

However, the Socialists later corrected themselves and said that possible police abuses would be investigated by the Government Delegation and the police themselves.