The spokesperson for the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Yaiza López Landi, has described as a “clear setback” the decision of the Government of the Canary Islands to revoke the Catalog of symbols, streets, monuments and Francoist mentions in the Canary Islands, approved in 2022 by the previous Executive of the Pact of Flowers, to promote measures that would preserve the democratic memory and the dignity of the victims of human rights violations.
The socialist deputy has shown the “negative surprise” on the part of the Socialist Group at the decision of the autonomous Executive of the Canarian Coalition (CC) and Popular Party (PP) to “do what” the City Council of Santa Cruz de Tenerife asks of it to revoke the approval of the document, which includes 79 vestiges of the Franco dictatorship that must be removed from public roads. “We are surprised that they do what Bermúdez asks of them in the face of a question in which what should be done is to resolve what the law says.”
For López Landi, the Canarian Government, supported by CC and PP, “joins” with this decision the “offensive of the right” against the preservation of historical memory and the dignity of the victims, “and it also does so in an autonomous community that has been characterized by always achieving the consensus of public administrations of different political colors on these issues. “They intend to make the victims of Francoism invisible.”
From the Socialist Group they assure that the step taken by the Canarian Government is a "clear setback", because "it has not only failed" its "obligations" to progressively update the Catalog of symbols, streets, monuments and Francoist mentions in the Canary Islands, in accordance with the programming and structuring by municipalities and islands established, but now "opens a revocation file" of the Catalog initially approved in 2022, which includes the symbols, streets, monuments and Francoist mentions of the municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
In this sense, López Landi recalls that the Democratic Memory Law approved in 2022 by the Executive of Ángel Víctor Torres "mandates public administrations to develop, in order to preserve in the collective memory the disasters of the war and of all forms of totalitarianism, all those measures aimed at preventing the human rights violations that occurred during the coup d'état, the war and the dictatorship from happening again."
The Government of the Pact of Flowers signed an agreement with the University of La Laguna (ULL) at the time to develop the contents provided for in the Law of Historical Memory of the Canary Islands and the realization of this Catalog, prepared by professionals who had already completed said contents, and even presented the Catalog of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Among these measures, the precise measures on public symbols occupy a "main place", which must have as their purpose the "meeting of citizens in peace and democracy and never an offensive or grievance expression, which justifies the necessary suppression of elements of division among citizens".
It also highlights that, within the framework of a human rights culture, the exaltation, glorification or apology of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, condemned by the report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe dated March 17, 2006, supposes in any case an "evident contempt or humiliation of the victims or their relatives, which is obligatory to combat in respect and preservation of their dignity, as a necessary exercise to remember and honor them".
Furthermore, all of this is a "requirement from various instances of protection of human rights in the international order", such as the report of the working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances of 2014; the report of the special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition; the resolution of the European Parliament of October 25, 2018 on the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe, and the resolution of this same institution of September 2019, on the importance of European historical memory for the future of Europe.
“Let's hope that when the new Catalog arrives, we all agree that Francoist vestiges must be eliminated, because if not, we would be talking about something else,” added López.
