On March 2, 1976, five armed men with machine guns kidnapped, interrogated and tortured Jose Antonio Martinez Soler, a Spanish journalist from Madrid and now a Nieman Fellow.

In an interview earlier this week, Martinez Soler said the terrorists, whom he characterized as Francoist right-wing extremists, beat him, sprayed acid in his face, demanded unsuccessfully that he reveal the sources of a controversial article published in a magazine he edits and threatened to kill his wife if the two failed to emigrate immediately.

His captors released him only after he agreed to leave Spain and relinquish his position as editor of Doblon, a Spanish weekly that Martinez Soler says is a "vanguard for democracy in Spain."

Instead of leaving his native country, however, he and his wife decided to remain and denounce the terrorists publicly.

Both the rightist and leftist Spanish press rallied to their defense, holding demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona to protest the act of terrorism.

"The birth of a more critical journalism under the monarchy triggered the reaction of the extreme right," Martinez Soler says.

The terrorist act was "a symbol of more liberalism in Spain, since legally it would never have been allowed," he says. "It was an illegal act, although usually the government does not prosecute right-wing terrorists," he added.

Martinez Soler says he is "rationally optimistic, by looking at objective facts" about the future of civil liberties and freedoms in Spain, but "emotionally, I have a tragic premonition that there will be another coup d'etat and dictatorship."

When Martinez Soler was notified of his Nieman Fellowship award during August, he almost refused it since at the time he was awaiting court martial because of another controversial article in Doblon and could not leave Spain.

However, King Juan Carlos eventually granted him amnesty and Martinez Soler was able to accept the fellowship.

As a Nieman Fellow, Martinez Soler says he plans to concentrate on television communications, a field he says interests him because Spanish television is presently subject to considerable government regulation, much more so than the press.