The Government of the Community of Madrid, chaired by Isabel Díaz Ayuso (PP), announced this Wednesday that it will present an appeal before the National Court against the declaration as a place of democratic memory of the Real Casa de Correos, headquarters of the regional Presidency, by the Official State Gazette (BOE). The processing of this designation, which seeks to remember the horrors experienced in the building during the Franco dictatorship, has been causing an open clash for a year between the central government, chaired by Pedro Sánchez, and the regional government, which opposes marking the building’s past with a plaque. The conflict now takes another step with the officialization of the designation, and the consequent appeal, which Madrid bases on the argument that the file that gave rise to the declaration has expired because it has been open for more than a year.
After the publication of the resolution in the BOE, the spokesperson for the Madrid Government, Miguel Ángel García Martín, said that it is “a sectarian resolution, contrary to the truth.” At the same time, they have announced that they will present an administrative appeal before the National Court because, according to their version, the file has expired.
“More than a year has passed since its performance until publication. It has expired since October 16. The Sánchez Government does not even do this well,” he stressed.
García Martín has defended that the Casa de Correos has more than 250 years of history and “an obvious connection with the period of the Enlightenment”, according to the Royal Academy of History. “This is a new smokescreen to not talk about the State corruption of the autocrat Sánchez,” he added.
The central government’s vision is diametrically opposite. “The Puerta del Sol building, which today houses administrative offices, constitutes a grim reminder of the horrors that thousands of people experienced during one of the darkest periods in the recent history of Spain,” reads the resolution, signed by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez López, dated October 20. “The declaration of a Place of Democratic Memory aims to rescue from oblivion and recognize those who suffered humiliation, torture or found death in its premises. The building constitutes a reference and symbol of human rights violations during the Franco regime,” it continues. And he argues: “With the declaration of a Place of Memory we intend to contribute to the knowledge of the truth of what happened in its premises with the aim of ensuring that similar events never occur again in our country.”
With positions so separated, conflict was assured. In fact, it has reached the Constitutional Court. In July, the High Court lifted the suspension of the law approved by the Ayuso government to make it difficult for the Post Office to be a place of democratic memory, by leaving in the hands of the president the power to decide whether or not to place plaques on its walls. But he did so without going into the underlying issue.
Thus, the Constitutional Court argued that “the possible installation of plaques or badges, as well as the celebration of events and other acts, is nothing more than a future and uncertain event; as is the eventual refusal of the Community of Madrid to authorize such actions” in relation to the declaration of the building as a place of democratic memory, which at that time had not occurred.
Consequently, the fight between the two administrations now enters an uncertain scenario.
“The Constitutional Court said that the problems that could arise were hypotheses,” summarizes a source who has the confidence of the president of the government. “So we will see if the hypotheses are fulfilled,” he adds. “Hopefully not,” he adds in reference to the possibility that Ayuso vetoes the installation of the plaque that indicates the designation of the place, and escalates the clash between the two parties. “We will follow the law.”
This is what Minister Ángel Torres said through a video recorded in front of the Royal Post Office: “[La declaración] “It is magnificent news for those of us who defend democracy, freedom and rights, and above all to restore dignity to the victims who suffered repression, torture and even the loss of their lives for defending the democracy that we enjoy today.”
The Real Casa de Correos, located in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, was the scene of torture, imprisonment and persecution of a political nature between 1939 and 1979, when it was occupied by the General Directorate of Security (DGS) of the Franco dictatorship. However, the regional Executive has been defending since October 2024, that this stage only represents 15% of the history of the Royal Post Office and that the placement of the plaque would affect its administrative use and invade regional powers.
What does the resolution published this Wednesday in the BOE mean? The declaration of a place of democratic memory “normally” culminates with the placement of a commemorative plaque; actions to “disseminate, in multiple supports and explanatory formats, why it is a place of memory”; and exhibitions, as explained by a central government spokesperson when the process that affects the Royal Post Office began.
I remember the Czechs
the regional government already objected in May 2024 to placing a plaque that commemorates the building’s past, after a request from journalist Nino Olmeda, who was detained during the dictatorship and still remembers the complex as a terrifying place, full of pain and screams, with cells and torturers. The Government spokesperson, Miguel Ángel García Martín, went so far as to say at that time that the building has “a lot of history”, recalling, among other things, that the Ministry of the Interior of the Second Republic was located in the same place, “when many Madrid residents were also persecuted for their ideas.”
Then, both Ayuso and the spokesperson argued that the only plaques that had a place in the Government headquarters were the existing ones, “because they unite and do not divide.” An honor to the heroes of May 2nd; another remembers the victims of 11-M and those who helped them; and, the last, to those who died during the covid pandemic.
However, the president’s powerful chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, went even further. Thus, in a letter addressed to Olmeda and , he argued that Madrid is “plagued with buildings” in which “reprehensible acts have been committed, such as those that occurred in the Czech Republic during the Civil War, without any plaque commemorating the horrors that occurred.”
In addition, the BOE will publish in the coming days the declarations as a Place of Democratic Memory of the Execution Wall of the Eastern Cemetery of Madrid, known as La Almudena Cemetery; and that of the Men’s Provincial Prison.
