MADRID, 25 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government has recognized that, even with the Democratic Memory Law, it cannot dissolve an openly National Socialist association, unless it commits hate crimes in a public act, the Prosecutor’s Office acts and the Justice ends by ordering it.
This is how the Executive responded to the deputies of Unidas Podemos Enrique Santiago and Ismael Cortés, who demanded actions against the Devenir Europeo association, which in February organized an act of “Blood Day” to which the head of the Nordic Resistance Movement was invited , Simon Lindberg.
Devenir Europeo is a cultural association that defines itself as “openly national socialist” and that is legally registered in the National Registry of the Ministry of the Interior. Although he does not hide his ideology, he makes it clear on his website that he “has no pretensions to becoming a political party.”
The association condemns the genocide carried out by the Nazi regime, but also complains that the Allied bombings of German cities such as Dresden were not condemned. It includes in its ideology a quote from Adolf Hitler on religions and celebrates as Empire Day every January 30, the date on which the Nazi leader was proclaimed chancellor in 1933. It also has an open campaign against works that it considers “degenerate” and against abstract art, to which he does not give any value.
In its response to Unidas Podemos, the Government assures that the 1978 Constitution recognizes the right of association and recalls that Devenir Europeo has been registered in the registry since 2008 “without there being any record until now that it has been investigated by the commission of any allegedly illegal, nor that it is in the orbit of extreme right-wing terrorist groups”.
The Government recalls that “associations may only be dissolved or suspended in their activities by virtue of a reasoned judicial decision” and that the Constitution recognizes “the right of peaceful assembly without weapons”, without its exercise requiring prior authorization.
In the cases of meetings in places of public transit and demonstrations, prior communication will be given to the authority, which may only prohibit them when there are well-founded reasons for disturbance of public order, with danger to people or property. In other words, he had no option of whether or not to consider prohibiting the Blood Day event that United Podemos criticized because it was private and could only be attended by personal invitation.
Therefore, it could not apply article 38 of the Democratic Memory Law, which censors “acts carried out in public that discredit, disparage or humiliate the victims or their relatives, and involve personal or collective exaltation of the military uprising (the of July 18, 1936), of the War (that of Spain 1936-39) or of the Dictatorship (the Francoist one), of its leaders, participants in the repressive system or of the organizations that supported the dictatorial regime (the Francoist one) “.
As he emphasizes, “only a judicial authority can adopt the measures of dissolution or suspension of the activities of the European Cultural Association” and prior action by the Public Prosecutor in cases in which, in the celebration of a public act, facts are noticed that could constitute a crime.
“In the event that a public act had finally been carried out that could constitute a hate crime, of which there is no record at the moment,” the competent authorities would notify the Public Prosecutor or the judicial authorities, he concludes.
