The tribute takes place after the Memory Law came into force, which sets October 31 as the day of tribute
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has called on the PP this Monday to comply with the Constitution without “excuses” or “subterfuge” and from start to finish, days after the ‘popular’ broke off the negotiation to renew the General Council of Power Judicial (CGPJ), whose mandate has expired for four years, due to the Government’s decision to reform the crime of sedition.
The head of the Executive has taken advantage of a tribute to the victims of the 1936 coup d’état, the civil war and the dictatorship, to reproach the PP, although without mentioning it, that honoring the Constitution “requires something more than proclaiming its validity”, that is to say , “fulfill it from beginning to end without excuses or subterfuge”.
During the act, which was attended by the vast majority of the Executive ministers, he maintained that democracy and the Constitution are collective achievements that in his opinion cannot be “exclusively patrimonialized” by anyone and that, on the contrary, they must be defended for everyone
“It is not enough to comply from a passive position”, but it must be fulfilled and enforced “in all extremes, from the first to the last of the articles”, Sánchez continued in reference to the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The act of this Monday, October 31, is the first to pay tribute to the victims, since it is thus included in the Democratic Memory Law that has recently come into force. In this regard, the head of the Executive has remarked that the fact that the rule establishes this day as a day dedicated to all the victims of the military coup, the war and the dictatorship, “is a declaration of intent”.
Thus, he explained that on this same day in 1978 the Constitution was approved by the legitimate representatives of the Spanish people in the Cortes Generales. “A direct link is thus established between what that date represents and the approval of a norm that has finally guaranteed the lasting roots so often denied to democracy in Spain,” he added.
Along the same lines, he has defended that this norm “is born from an integrating story” and with the aim of building a shared story “based on everything that unites us”, as he has transferred, after a war in which “fanaticism ideological, sectarian violence and civil and religious political persecution devoured Spain to its core,” he said.
He has also pointed out that, as a country, throughout history “a high price has been paid for freedom” and that therefore, in addition to preserving that legacy, “we must never take it for granted”, he remarked. At this point, he has highlighted the advance of “reactionary forces” in various parts of Europe or the autocracy with which Putin governs Russia “reminds us that neither progress nor democracy are irreversible,” he pointed out.
Likewise, Sánchez and the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, have delivered reparation diplomas to some twenty victims and relatives of victims of the war and the dictatorship.
DIPLOMAS TO TWENTY VICTIMS
The twenty certificates of reparation have been granted to the following people: José Aristimuño Olaso “Aitzol”, a priest assassinated in Hernani during the war; Adrián de Luz Anchuelo, priest murdered in Valdetorres del Jarama; Melquíades Álvarez González-Posada, president of Congress in 1922 and murdered in the model prison in Madrid; Facundo Navacerrada Perdiguero, founder of the UGT in San Sebastián de los Reyes and assassinated in Colmenar Viejo during the war.
Also to the communist leaders Luis Lucio Lobato –who spent 26 years in jail– and Julián Grimau García, shot in 1963; Ana López Gallego, one of the thirteen roses; Elisa Garrido Gracia, combatant against the rebel army; Ramón de la Sota y Llano, businessman, politician and member of the PNV to whom all his assets were seized; Luisa Genoveva Carnés Caballero, writer and journalist exiled in Mexico, one of the ‘hatless’.
Fernando Álvarez de Miranda Torres, first president of the Congress in democracy and deported by the dictatorship to Fuerteventura; Balbina Gayo Gutiérrez, a teacher shot along with her husband; Xesús Alonso Montero, president of the Royal Galician Academy and victim of reprisals; Montserrat Dangers Bellisco, stolen girl; Francisco Martínez López, one of the last survivors of the anti-Franco guerrilla; Jesús Soriano Carrillo, Spanish Freemasonry leader on behalf of the persecuted members of this organization.
Jordi Lozano González, one of the first LGTBI activists in Spain, imprisoned by the dictatorship; Fernando Reinlein García-Miranda, member of the Democratic Military Union and convicted of the dictatorship; Alejandro Ruiz Huerta, lawyer, sole survivor of the massacre of labor lawyers on Atocha Street and Juana Doña Jiménez, feminist and trade unionist imprisoned for 14 years and sentenced to death that was finally commuted. Finally, the singers Ere and Ana Belén have performed the song ‘España Camisa Blanca de mi esperanza’, composed by Víctor Manuel.
