The truth is that there is no shortage of criminals. Activists convicted of denouncing whale fishing in Denmark, activists convicted of confronting the navy to try to prevent oil prospecting, Iraqi activists convicted of protesting against the government, PAH activists convicted of trying to prevent an eviction or occupying an unused home, Egyptian activists convicted of demonstrating in front of Parliament, activists convicted of raising their voices in the various anti-globalization protests, Greenpeace activists convicted of protesting against a nuclear power plant, Sahrawi activists sentenced to life imprisonment by Morocco after the historic protests of the Gdeim Izik camp, or the humorists of the satirical magazine El Jueves convicted repeatedly for making use of freedom of expression.
The world is full of criminals who have been so for defending a cleaner, fairer and less corrupt world. Brave people who lost their fear, that fear that power systematically tries to impose so that we are submissive to the barbarities that those who govern us and those who pull their strings from their company offices commit every day. And it's a good thing these criminals exist.
Then there are other criminals. They dress well, drive expensive cars, and if you pass them on the street you wouldn't suspect they're going to steal your wallet. They seem respectable and civilized and are known as white-collar criminals. They don't pull a knife on you in the street but they empty your bank account, that bank account that is common and we all have in public institutions, and then they tell you that there is no money for nursing homes. They will never be convicted of robbery with violence because they have specialized in influence peddling, money laundering, bribery, embezzlement, prevarication, crimes of course much more respectable than stealing bread or trying to prevent a family from being evicted from their homes.
One of the most serious problems we have is corruption, and it is increasingly difficult for the powerful to deceive citizens, no matter how much they continue to control the major media (and that is why they are so violent with the few media they do not control and that tell what they do not want to be known). Corruption is not only that a few keep the money of all, but it also means, and we are already seeing it clearly, that there is no money for basic issues while immoral amounts continue to be submerged in immoral projects.
That there are people in poverty is also, perhaps above all, a consequence of corruption. Therefore, anyone who denounces corruption will be systematically stoned by the media of power, and they will do so by applying increasingly twisted means because the lie they are trying to cover up is an elephant that is getting bigger and bigger, more obvious and more impossible to hide. That is why white-collar criminals accuse those who fight against corruption of being criminals.
According to all this, I feel very proud to belong to the increasingly numerous group of people who were convicted because one day or many days they risked breaking the law in order to denounce an injustice or, as in my case, for trying to denounce the corruption surrounding the partial plan case La Bufona. The power, that dark and smelly power that Coalición Canaria represents today on the island, will have to strengthen its quarry of thugs because its shames do not stop growing. Here we will be to face them, because they represent the worst of this society.
Carlos Meca, Councilor of Podemos in the Cabildo of Lanzarote