Compensation

I didn't know that gays in Spain had been treated, under Franco's brutal regime, as bad as the Nazis did in their internment camps. The Spanish government is apparently going to compensate the few survivors for their suffering:

The Spanish government may offer money to those who were sent to mental hospitals, tortured, imprisoned or who suffered a lifetime of persecution. The Spanish Justice Minister, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, is considering granting victims a pension of €800 (£540) a month, plus a one-off €12,000 payment for what they suffered under the regime. It could be introduced in two months.

Many homosexuals were prevented from working under the Franco dictatorship because of their "criminal" records, meaning they never contributed enough money to receive more than the minimum pension.
[...]
During Franco's homophobic dictatorship, gays were jailed or locked up in sinister mental institutions known as "correction camps". With echoes of the Nazi atrocities against gays, they were given electric shocks in the belief that this would rid them of their homosexual urges. Inmates were forced to watch pornographic films featuring women in an effort to show them a sex life that was deemed "natural" by the conservative authorities.

More on the treatment they received:

Homosexuality was designated as an offence under the "law against delinquency and criminals" introduced in 1954. But towards the end of Franco's regime, it was increasingly viewed as an illness rather than a crime. In 1968, the psychologist Lopez Ibor said: "Homosexuals should be seen more as sick people than as criminals. But the law should still prevent them proselytising in schools, sports clubs and army barracks." Jail terms of up to three years were imposed under laws covering "public scandal" or "social danger".

And this was a shocker to me too, since I always thought Spain was a fairly liberal country after Franco died:

Even after Franco died, persecution of gays continued. They could be jailed until 1979. And although thousands of political and other prisoners were pardoned in 1976, gay people were made to serve their sentences. In 2001, Spain finally pledged to wipe clean the criminal records of gays convicted under Franco.

Unbelievable.

I'm glad the government is finally doing something to right the many wrongs these people had to suffer.

Too bad many haven't lived to see this day.