SEVILLA, 11 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The ex-leader of Podemos Pablo Iglesias has valued this Friday as a “democratic advance” the suppression of the crime of sedition promoted by the Government of the Nation but has warned that it would not make sense for the elimination of this “anachronistic” crime to conclude with the incorporation “through the back door of other criminal offenses to criminalize social protest”.
Speaking to journalists before participating in a public event to present his book ‘Medios y Sewers’ in Seville, Iglesias has assured that “it is good that this crime ceases to exist”, but he wanted to make it clear that “what would not have sense in no case is that new types appeared that served to criminalize social protest”.
The former Vice President of the Government has explained that he has spoken with members of Podemos who are “studying in great detail a reform that has been carried out with enormous secrecy” and has defended that there is “consensus throughout the left that no reform can help activists who practice civil disobedience or protest in the street can find themselves with new criminal types that serve to criminalize social protest”.
“It is a democratic advance that sedition does not exist, but other types of crimes cannot enter through the back door,” Iglesias insisted, pointing out that “it makes no sense in a democracy to classify criminal offenses that serve to persecute the protesting people.
In his opinion, “protest and civil disobedience enrich democracies in systems of political pluralism”, for which he considers that “it is good that an anachronistic crime such as sedition ceases to exist, which has been used to criminalize the Catalan independence movement, but “other types of crimes that criminalize social protest cannot enter through the back door.”
Asked if the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, should resign due to the events at the Melilla border, Iglesias recalled that he said “from the beginning that what happened in Melilla was a flagrant violation of human rights in the name of of our state.”
“There were members of the State Security Forces and Bodies who, under the orders of the Ministry of the Interior and in view of the videos that have appeared, not only those published by the BBC, but also those that appeared in other publications, have revealed that the law has been breached. From there, I think the minister has to assume his responsibility”, he concluded.
