The Government Delegation is studying possible sanctions against those who this Friday walked through various streets of Madrid uttering “racist and antidemocratic” shouts and proclamations, within the framework of a demonstration called under the slogan Against the genocide of ’78in reference to constitutional democracy. During the march, which brought together about 700 people, according to the Government Delegation’s own calculations, and which had been called to commemorate Franco’s death, slogans were raised “for the victims of immigrant violence”, and against the President of the Government: “Pedro Sánchez, shot in the back of the head!” According to the Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín Aguirre, they can be constitutive
The march had been prohibited by the Government Delegation, but was later authorized by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid. “If shouts occur during the demonstration that violate the Penal Code or the Democratic Memory law,” the public powers must react,” even dissolving the concentration, but “it is not enough to harbor generic doubts about possible negative effects of a meeting to restrict or prohibit it,” they added.
The Government delegate considers the “racist, xenophobic, homophobic and death threats” messages expressed during the march to be “extremely serious” and sources from the Delegation explain that they are now studying the imposition of sanctions under the law of democratic memory and also the Penal Code to “report the facts to the competent authorities if appropriate.”
Article 62 considers acts that “incite personal or collective exaltation, of the military uprising, of the War or the Dictatorship, of its leaders, participants in the repressive system or of the organizations that supported the dictatorial regime, when it entails discredit, contempt or humiliation of the victims or their families.” The fine provided in these cases ranges from 10,001 to 150,000 euros. The Secretary of State responsible for democratic memory is competent to initiate and resolve the sanctioning file.
The Minister of Digital Transformation and general secretary of the PSOE in Madrid, referred this Saturday, during a party event on the public university, to the Falange march. “In that demonstration they shouted that they shoot the President of the Government and I want to demand two things: Feijóo condemns the shouts that yesterday [por el sábado] “There was in the streets of Madrid against Sánchez, and the same justice that authorized that demonstration with an appeal from the Falange that now condemns those who asked for a shot in the back of the head for the President of the Government.”
Cross criticism on the politicization of justice
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, for the moment, has not referred to what happened at the Falange march. The party has dedicated a good part of its messages of the day to Álvaro García Ortiz, for revealing confidential data about the partner of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The Popular Party’s Deputy Secretary of Health and Social Policy, Carmen Fúnez, assured this Saturday in Puertollano (Ciudad Real) that the PSOE is trying to delegitimize the judiciary “to protect one of its own” by presenting the convicted person “as a victim and questioning the impartiality of the Supreme Court.” The condemnation of the attorney general, Fúnez stressed, is also a political condemnation of President Sánchez, who “appointed him, protected him and used him.”
For her part, the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, took advantage of this Saturday to accuse a part of the judiciary of “suspending its constitutional functions to intervene in politics” against the progressive Government. Díaz has insisted that García Ortiz “is innocent”, has shown his “astonishment” at the announcement of the ruling by the Supreme Court and has accused the PP of “wanting to dominate the General Council of the Judiciary to influence the political life” of the country.
