The recently appointed Councilor for Culture in the Burriana City Council, Jesús Albiol, from Vox, has canceled the council’s subscription to the magazines Camacuc, Cavall Fort and El Temps, as well as Enderrock and Llengua Nacional. In a tweet, Albiol points out that the City Council will not continue “promoting Catalan separatism with the money of the Burrianenses. We are not second-class Catalans, we are first-class Valencians and Spanish”.
Albiol links the message with an image of a plenary session in January, when he himself -then in the opposition- asked the local government to withdraw these subscriptions, which he classified as “Catalan propaganda” after studying the content of the magazines.
The message has had diverse reactions on the networks, including those of the publications themselves, such as that of Cavall Fort (aimed at children and young people), which says that it is “sad and worrying, but we will find ways to reach children so that they can continue reading and having fun in Catalan”. “Language as an expression of identity, cooks”, has stated the director Mònica Estruch in RAC1. El Temps has also shared the news on networks, encouraging its followers to subscribe to face measures like this.
For its part, the municipal group of Compromís has criticized the censorship of these publications. This is the case of Vicent Granel, spokesman for the Valencian party in Burriana, who has assured that “we cannot take a step back, we cannot allow censorship to reach culture. We cannot consent, it is time to unite more than ever! “.
In statements to El Món to RAC1, Granel has explained that the subscription, specifically of Cavall Fort, began in the days of the PP in 2006 and that it ends in May 2024. “As they cannot be eliminated, when they arrive they will put them into a drawer”. The Compromís councilor denounces “an attack” against the language and a way of “restricting” the freedom of reading. He wonders if it is “legal” to withdraw this type of magazine for ideological reasons, since if it is not “for economic reasons, people have the right to access them.”
The local pact between the Popular Party and Vox forms the local government board in Burriana, with 12 councilors, 8 from the first group and 4 from the second. Vox holds two mayoral tenures and the departments of Urban Planning, Family, Citizen Security and Culture, the same portfolio that the far-right formation will hold in the next Valencian Council that will leave after the investiture on Monday, July 17 of the popular Carlos Mazón.
The leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has valued this action as “intolerable” during a campaign event and has called on the candidate of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to “disavow” and “reverse” Albiol’s decision. The head of the opposition in Catalonia has commented: “Mr. Feijóo disavow this madman who prohibits magazines in Catalan in Valencia.” Illa added that what happened in Burriana is one more “reason” to vote for the PSOE in the next general elections.
