The president of Aragon, the popular Jorge Azcón, has reproached in a letter sent to the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, the “inaccuracies, falsehoods and omissions” that, in his opinion, contain the report of the three rapporteurs in which They asked the Spanish Government to take “all necessary measures” after the repeal of the Democratic Memory laws in Aragon, Castilla y León and the Valencian Community.
In his letter, the popular man expresses his “deep disappointment” at the content of the report and describes it as “incomprehensible and unprecedented” that his Executive has not been consulted by the supranational organization for its preparation, something that, in his opinion, undermines “ seriously” its objectivity and “the obligatory impartiality of its conclusions.”
“As a direct result of this omission, the report contains biased and interested information provided by the Government of Spain,” he adds, so the final text “distorts reality” and is “riddled with inaccuracies, falsehoods and omissions.”
In the controversial report, the three signatory rapporteurs analyzed one by one the initiatives adopted by the three communities mentioned above. Regarding Aragon, they denounced that the repeal in February of the regional democratic memory law of 2018 (with the votes in favor of PP, Vox and PAR) “makes invisible the serious violations of human rights committed during the Franco dictatorship”, since which does not explicitly refer to or condemn “the regime, its dictatorial character or its responsibility” for the crimes committed in that period.
Likewise, they highlight that it suppresses “numerous entities and activities” (such as registries, inventories, signage, routes, maps of graves or educational activities) and that it subjects subsidies for public historical memory projects to “conditions that may put their sustainability at risk.” .
Shortly after the report became known, Azcón harshly attacked the “hoaxes,” “massive errors” and falsehoods” that, he said, the rapporteurs’ text contained. One of them, Fabián Salvioli, answered him the same day. “It is an offense to the intelligence of the population to say that something that exists does not exist,” he replied.
Now, Azcón assures Guterres that the intention of his future ‘concord plan’ – which is expected to be ready to present before the summer – is not to make the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship invisible, but to “honor all them”, including “those of the democratic period”, in reference to those of ETA and terrorism.
He then dedicates the next two pages to listing those “falsehoods” that he denounces. Firstly, he highlights that his Government has not yet approved any ‘concord law’, and that it has only proceeded to repeal the Democratic Memory law of 2018, which he accuses of imposing “a biased narrative” and carrying out a “partisan interpretation of history.”
He then points out that this repeal approved in February “does not make invisible the serious violations of human rights committed during the Franco dictatorship” and will not prevent public administrations from facilitating citizens and associations in the “search, exhumation, documentation and honoring of the victims of war or repression”, regardless of their “side, ideology or other personal circumstances”.
To support his argument, he points out that this year they have announced a 10% increase in the budget for exhumations, although the opposition denounces that accounts do not include a specific item for this purpose.
Finally, Azcón indicates that the institutional web portal on democratic memory has not been suppressed and that subsidies for public projects related to this area “do not remain in an uncertain situation”, but are subject to a legal imposition regulated in Spanish legislation. “As soon as it is not possible, we will send you a report as an allegation that goes into legal depth into all the issues,” he concludes.
