The Compromís municipal group in the Valencia City Council has expanded the complaint to the Hate Crimes Prosecutor's Office with new “racist and xenophobic messages” from Vox councilor Cecilia Herrero on social networks, while this party states that they are “ decontextualized.”
“So much reconquest to end up paying for the invasion of the Moors” or “Disgusting. They are wild. “Africa out of civilized Europe” are some of the messages denounced by Compromís, which urges the mayor, María José Catalá, to immediately dismiss this councilor.
The municipal group of Compromís had already forwarded to the Prosecutor's Office the “racist” messages from that same Vox councilor on her social network his country".
“We cannot look the other way, racism and hatred have no place in a democratic society” and “they cannot go unpunished,” said the municipal spokesperson for Compromís, Papi Robles, at a press conference this Thursday.
Compromís councilor Lucía Beamud has added that her group does not have to do any “pensaeta” (reflection) about Herrero's demonstrations and is clear that this woman “is a racist and not only because of her comment against a human rights activist.” humans, but because of the history they have on their social networks.”
Compromís recalls that in the last municipal plenary session the PP approved an alternative motion not to dismiss this Vox councilor as requested by her group, which said that “racist attitudes were not going to be tolerated in the city of València.”
In the opinion of this formation, the mayor “has a decision to make” in the face of Herrero's “racist” manifestations on social networks and considers that “it is taking” too long to adopt them.
“València is a reference for a welcoming and diverse city, and Mrs. Herrero cannot represent it,” stated the Compromís spokesperson.
For Papi Robles, talking about “democratic regeneration is about this, not allowing there to be people in any government, or representing any institution, who make these statements.”
Lastly, he warns that his party will not stop denouncing these events “despite the threats” nor will it allow these statements to be made in a democratic space.
For his part, socialist councilor Borja Sanjuán has denounced that the mayor “allows the name of the city to be dirty” in order to continue governing “with her far-right partners,” and has called it “ridiculous” that the second lieutenant of mayor and municipal spokesperson for Vox, Juanma Badenas, try to “make excuses to justify the unjustifiable.”
“What Catalá cannot allow is to stop condemning these demonstrations and let them drag the entire city into ridicule,” said Sanjuán, to reproach the mayor for being “incapable” of disproving the councilor's racist statements.
The councilor has said that this city is full of people of any type of origin and of any type of skin color and they are as Valencian as Catalá and they deserve to have a mayor who defends them.
In this regard, Badenas has regretted the "bad faith" of the municipal groups in the opposition (Compromís and PSPV), since he assures that the phrase of the councilor of his group was "decontextualized."
“This already shows the bad faith of those who are raising this type of complaints, complaints or whatever they are called,” Badenas stated in statements to journalists after presenting the new edition of the València Emplea program.
Badenas has pointed out that the councilor "and whoever corresponds can take appropriate legal action to restore her honor and to condemn those who, quite clearly, have tried to tarnish her image and honor."
He has reiterated that the messages reported by the opposition groups are “incomplete and therefore decontextualized” and there is “zero racism” in them.
“It's not racism, it's justice. For us, at Vox, what matters to us are the people, not their skin color, their sex, nor their religion, nor their ideology,” he stated.
Badenas has also stated that their training "does not discriminate" and they "truly believe Article 14 of the law", as well as that what they denounce are "those activities that go against the law, where the law is violated, either by arriving in Spain or by committing crimes, some of them abominable.”
“On the left there is a certain tendency to exonerate people from criminal responsibility based on their race, and if the person who commits the crime is a person who belongs to a certain race or a certain ethnicity, in that case it is as if the crime it would not have been committed,” he added.
