Thursday’s incident at the Benicalap municipal swimming pool, where two employees barred the passage of a veiled woman who tried to access it with her children, has raised a notable political dust-up in Valencia. The events led to the arrest of the two workers of the company that manages the facility and the announcement of an investigation by the City Council.
The complainant and the accused agree on the essential fact: the woman wanted to access the pool and the two men did not let her pass. She, a Sahrawi who has lived in Spain for 24 years, told the Levante newspaper that she informed the workers that only the children, aged five and eight, would bathe, but that she was severely insulted with racist expressions: “Go away in your fucking country” or “what disgusting clothes you wear”. They argue that they only prevented him from entering because the regulations prohibit bathing in clothes other than swimwear.
For ex-mayor Joan Ribó, from Compromís, “this happens when hatred and racism become strong and enter the institutions”, as he published on his social networks. It is just one example of the many who, from the left, have linked the incident to the new political times: a Council in which Vox leads three ministries and a City Council where the popular mayor, María José Catalá, needed the support of the ultra-right to take office.
It was not her, but the acting mayor, Julia Climent, who yesterday, after the request for explanations that the PSOE formulated in the morning, addressed the main opposition party to “stop politicizing” a subject “so delicate”. What needs to be done, he suggested, is to “let the bodies work” that are investigating what happened.
Climent responded to the request of the socialist Javier Mateo to call a meeting of all the parties with the aim of dealing with the issue.
The acting mayor explained that “the National Police has been, from the very beginning, pending the issue, but, in addition, the municipal government has immediately launched an investigation into the concessionaire through the Municipal Sports Foundation , from the same Sports Service and the City Council’s non-discrimination office”.
Once the case is studied, “all the parties will be informed of the conclusions at the appropriate time”, Climent pointed out.
Socialist councilor Javier Mateo demanded an urgent meeting in the morning from the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, to inform the opposition groups of the incident. “Given the seriousness of what has happened in Benicalap and after the arrest of two workers from the concessionaire company for an alleged hate crime, from the PSOE we demand the PP and the Councilor for Sports to convene as soon as possible a meeting to comprehensively inform the opposition of the facts”, explained Mateo.
The socialist demanded that they be informed “of the actions that the municipal government will take to prevent incidents of this type from occurring again”.
The detainees are two men aged 32 and 50 who were given a statement on Thursday as alleged perpetrators of a crime against fundamental rights and public freedoms. Once they had presented their version of the events, they were released with the warning to appear before the judicial authority when required, as reported by the National Police.
