Hundreds of people gathered yesterday in Burriana (Castellón) to protest the withdrawal of the consistory from the subscription of the municipal library to various magazines in Catalan and to ask that it be restored by the councilor for “ignorance”.
The rally was called by the Platform for the Language at 19:00 at the Municipal Library of Burriana, in the Plaza de la Mercé, and it was joined by the Agrupació Borrianenca de Cultura, Acció Cultural del País Valencian (ACPV) and the Valencian School (FEV).
With it, the entity intended to show its rejection of the decision taken by the Councilor for Culture, Jesús Albiol (Vox), who announced on July 8 on Twitter that the Burriana City Council “will not continue promoting Catalan separatism with the money of Burrianenses” and thus communicated the end of the library’s subscription to Camacuc, Fort, El Temps, Enderrock and Llengua Nacional magazines. And titled: “Mission Accomplished”.
The Platform’s delegate, Toni Royo, explained to EFE that the protest aims to demand that “a return to the previous situation” be achieved, which meant that “the magazines were available to the people and whoever wanted to read them freely and whoever did not want to, No”.
The magazines whose subscription has been cancelled, the representative of the Platform pointed out, “have nothing in common, only that they are in Valencian” and may “interest very different audiences”.
But what has happened in this case is that “they do not tolerate that they are in Valencian” and that “is a personal opinion”, something that “is not in the job of working for the culture of Burriana but rather means censoring it”.
“It’s not just that it’s not fair,” Royo pointed out, “but that it’s not admissible” and “although we accept the fact that the citizens of Burriana have voted for that combination of political forces, what they do is a different thing.”
The Platform, in addition to the protest this Monday, is also looking for “another space” in Burriana to “be able to avoid censorship by offering free reading of censored magazines.”
The entity will also support the strategy of the Association of Periodical Publications in Catalan (APPEC) which will respond in a triple way: “judicial, institutional and citizen mobilization”
