“What is coming is the host, guys,” the singer Miguel Ríos explicitly warned. “The only way to stop them is to all go to the polls, because if not, this country will go back after so much blood, sweat and tears shed along the way,” warned actress Marisa Paredes.
Panic spreads among people of cinema and theater, music and other artistic expressions, after Vox, in some of the municipalities where it already governs with the Popular Party, has censored the representation of works by Lope de Vega or Virginia Woolf , the animated film Lightyear, or children’s magazines in Catalan such as Cavall Fort and Camacuc.
And Pedro Sánchez, faced with the fear unleashed in the so-called world of culture by the forecast that the far-right could reach the Government of Spain hand in hand with the PP after 23-J, decided late on Thursday to join the event organized this Friday at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid to read various manifestos in favor of culture and against censorship.
Accompanied by the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta – who has already taken the opportunity to promote several of the children’s magazines in Catalan banned by Vox at the Burriana Town Hall, in Castellón –, the President of the Government made a few brief statements before the start of the event to highlight that “the best tool to fight against censorship is the vote.”
Sánchez stressed that “freedom of expression and freedom of creation is essential in a democratic society.” But he regretted that since the new town halls that emerged from the elections on May 28 were launched, “we are seeing an impudent exchange of rights for votes, of principles for armchairs”, between the PP and Vox.
“Censorship is making its way in municipalities and autonomous communities, where the broadcast of films or the celebration of plays even from a hundred years ago is being prohibited,” warned the also leader of the PSOE. “Something absolutely unthinkable,” he reproached.
Sánchez wanted to claim that “no step backwards can be allowed in free creation and free expression, especially of our artists.” “We have to reaffirm our will to continue moving forward,” he encouraged. And he transferred the support of the PSOE to the world of culture, which in his opinion is “threatened” by the government pacts between the PP and Vox.
After his statements, the head of the Executive attended the reading of several of these manifestos by arts professionals, sitting in the front row of the act between the actor Miguel Rellán and the poet Gioconda Belli, who was stripped of Nicaraguan nationality by Daniel Ortega and later nationalized Chilean thanks to the offer made by Gabriel Boric.
Sánchez then returned to Moncloa, where he received precisely the President of the Republic of Chile, Gabriel Boric, with whom he exhibited great political harmony, and later the President of the General Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court, Rafael Mozo.
The President of the Government resumes his electoral agenda this Saturday, in the most unusual campaign that is remembered in the PSOE since the candidate hardly stars in rallies. After leaving blank last weekend, to prepare a single face-to-face with Alberto Núñez Feijóo in which he pricked a bone, Sánchez will try to catch his breath, and restore morale to his ranks already in the middle of the campaign, with two rallies, tomorrow in Valencia and on Sunday in Barcelona.
