Activist Redwan Baddou spoke this Wednesday on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero about the popular legislative initiative that will be debated in the Congress of Deputies to regularize 500,000 people living in Spain in a regular administrative situation without access to rights and about the wave of racism and the rise of the extreme right that is being experienced in Europe and also in the Canary Islands.
"In recent years I have been noticing a hostility in the environment and in the messages that is very palpable and really impacts me quite a bit," Baddou explained during his intervention in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote.
"When I have often sat in a cafeteria, I have had to listen to barbarities," Baddou confessed, something that has also happened to him when he is in the company of other racialized people or migrants.
When listening to xenophobic or racist comments, Baddou has "confronted the people in question" or has gotten up and left. "This is how it is and it hasn't been once or twice, but it has already been several times," he added.
The human rights activist has linked the rise of racism with "poor political management" and with "the irresponsible messages that politicians release. Today is the day for this and it is because politicians have not done their job and are not doing it."
The regularization of more than 500,000 migrants in an irregular situation
Currently, the Bureau of the Congress of Deputies has received 700,000 signatures to regularize more than 500,000 people who live in Spain in an irregular administrative situation and with the aim of regularizing their situation.
"It is necessary for the State to grant rights to all people so that we are all in equal conditions. It is not fair that there are people who have to live in hiding and in absolute precariousness," he stressed during his intervention on the radio program.
At this point, he added that "what cannot be is that there are people who have been in an irregular situation for 10, 20 or 30 years or even children who have been born in Spain who are in irregular situations because they inherit that situation from their parents."
Baddou continued stating that "there are children who have been born in Spain who are in an irregular situation," who stressed that from social activism they have tried to change this situation, given the lack of political initiatives. "If we want people with their documentation in order, what we should do is make it easier for them to regularize," he continued.
This popular legislative initiative had been blocked in the Bureau of the Congress of Deputies for five months. "After several weeks of meetings with the different political parties, we have managed to unblock it and now it enters the drafting phase. We are demanding that the drafting be closed and that a report be issued throughout the month of October," he concluded.
