Spanish Opposition Party (PP) facing death threat charges.

international | crime and justice | other press

Monday June 13, 2005 22:03

by carme

Charges were brought against members of the main Opposition party the PP today, after a demonstration organised by the second largest political organisation in Spain saw numerous banners calling for the death of the leader of the Catalan ERC party, Josep Lluis Carod Rovira who is the leader of one of the coalition parties in Catalonia.

The President of the "home rule" Catalan Generalitat, Pasqual Maragall called for the apologies of the front bench of the PP party, ( who sit in Europe in the liberal block ) for the threats which were made during a demonstration in Salamanca in central Spain on friday.

The demonstration followed increased street activity by the radicalised PP party who had gathered hundreds of thousands the week before to demonstrate against any peace process with the Basque region.

Amidst accusations of a "lynching mentality" the front bench of the PP party, have refused to answer the charges of irresonsible mobilisation, and are claiming it is "difficult" to control posters, yet paid for the demonstrators to arrive, having hired buses for them. They are now preparing a homophobic display ostensibly under a "pro-family" banner for the capital Madrid on the 18th of June which shall be followed by a regional election which they are expected to lose.

The incident might be seen as a renewed fascist tendency and worries some observers in that the spokesperson of the M11 March 11th bombing in Madrid, a socialist Pilar Manjon left her home city due to death threats in the last week. Threats which she has attributed to members of the PP.
The case which is under investigation, casts a slur of continuing allegations by the PP that ETA and not islamic fundamentalists were responsible for the bombing in which almost 200 people over 50 of whom were migrants were killed in train bombs in 2004.
The release of intelligence files confirmed that the then PP government under Aznar had lied to the public and been forewarned of an islamic fundamentalist threat.

http://actualidad.terra.es/nacional/articulo/erc_maragall_pp_349956.htm
http://www.elperiodicodearagon.com/noticias/noticia.asp?pkid=188474
http://www.bahiademalaga.com/?goto_screen=articulo&id=22674&idseccion=2&idcategoria=2&pagina=1

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Comments (1 of 1)

Update-

by iosaf

Wed Jun 15, 2005 21:17

This case is more serious than it at first glance seems.
Any group who seek to articulate their political opinion or philosophy in public space are bound by the unseen contracts of civility.-
There are indeed rules, lots of them, and they are common to all civilised nations and states and are a cherished part of the ever expanding liberties of expression and association. As a protester who has "taken" to & "reclaimed" streets in many European cities, and whose advice has been sought on moblisations in non-European cities where the same "rules" do not often apply, I am very concerned at the way in which the PP and those who they represent have behaved, all the more, in the full knowledge that when they were "in power", protesters and demonstraters were often the arbitrary target of police or other state brutality. And in the bitter knowledge that surveliance and monitoring of protesters and those who exercised their rights to freedom of opinion and assembly often infringed the norms of a democratic state.

Today the lawyers of ERC brought the "Salamanca death threats" case to the court where it is being processed, in addition to those individuals who mounted and carried a banner, there is also one old man who carried a poster, there are two front bench politicians listed.
One is Zaplana the valencian PP answer to ZP, and the other is Angel Acebes the politician who more than any held the utterly false line that the March 11th massacre was the responsibility of eta. That was the PP plan, it seems, to place blame where society was used to see blame placed.

Also today saw another incident in the same town of Salamanca re-visited, last January 22nd the current minister of defence José Bono (perhaps the most outspokenly anti-eta of the ZP government if such distinctions may be made) was attacked during a walkabout. The judge has declared that the evidence proves that the members of the AVT (association of victims of terror) who attacked mr Bono did so with intent.

There is an underlying threat of violence it would therefore seem from all "popular" mobilisations of the PP, who perhaps for certain reasons think themselves to be "beyond" the rule of law, the state of rights which guarantees the peace.

It is thus time to reassure all spanish citizens that this is not the case, that if those of the left may not expect to demonstrate with impunity or fear of police retaliation, and if those of the left exercise restraint on the messages given by their banners then those of the right
must be "brought to heel". For very surely if one hair is harmed on the head of any leading figure of the left, be it spanish or catalan or basque, spokeswoman for terror victims or trade unionist, leading "gay" or "straight", we will all know this time -
"where the blame is to be placed".

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Spanish Opposition Party (PP) facing death threat charges.

Comments (1 of 1)