City councils of the Valencian Community governed by PP and Vox have taken advantage of the change of year to cancel subscriptions to three magazines in Valencian - Saó, Camacuc and Espai Carraixet - which could be consulted in municipal buildings such as the library, the town hall or the house of the culture
The economic reason seems to be unconvincing since one of the subscriptions was only 20 euros per year; The most expensive one involved an outlay of 55 euros per year; and even in one of the councils – this one governed alone by the PP – the magazine was left free of charge. For this reason, those responsible for these publications do not hesitate to say that the decision responds to “bestial persecution of the Valencian” and they describe it as “censorship.”
Vicent Boscà, director of the magazine Saó – founded in 1976 and about to launch its 500th issue – explains that, a few days ago, they received an email from a worker at the Montserrat City Council in which they were informed that “from the Department of Culture” it had been decided “to cancel the subscription with effect from January 1, 2024.” Boscà related this decision to the motion of censure last December that led to a change in the local government with the votes of PP – which has retained the Mayor's Office – Vox – which has held the Culture area since then – and a local party independent.
The director of the magazine says that for a decade the City Council has been subscribing, for 55 euros, to the 11 issues that are published annually. He remembers that Montserrat is a Valencian-speaking municipality and emphasizes that the cancellation is a “political decision.”
It is not the only magazine that will no longer be in the Montserrat library. Joan Escrivà, director of the children's magazine Camacuc, explains to this newspaper that the same email reached them canceling the 20 euro annual subscription to their magazine. In the case of Camacuc it rains in the wet because Burriana, with the Vox councilor and regional deputy, already announced the end of the subscription months ago. There were then protests and it even seemed that the local PP was reconsidering the situation, but, finally, after the turn of the year, “the subscription has not been renewed,” explains Escrivà.
Nor has the Torrent City Council, where although it is the PP that runs the Department of Culture, Linguistic Promotion is in the hands of Vox. This municipality of almost 85,000 inhabitants was already involved in controversy when it decided to change the name of the municipal auditorium so that the name of Vicent Torrent, singer of the group Al Tall and resident of the town, would not appear in it.
From Vox they point out that there is no specific guideline, but there is a commitment to "remove subsidies from Catalan companies." A label that, for example, allows them to cancel contracts with children's comic magazines that are published entirely in Valencian, with the simple argument of “safeguarding Valencian.”
However, this issue does not only concern Vox. The paradigmatic case occurred this week in Meliana, a town in the metropolitan area of Valencia, where the PP governs with an absolute majority and the far-right party does not even have representation in the City Council.
The director of Espai Caraixet, Núria Garcia, tells La Vanguardia that, two days after presenting the latest issue of this cultural magazine distributed free of charge in the Horta Nord region, she received a request through a form for her to contact with a phone. It was then that the councilor for Festivals, Culture and Identity of the Meliana City Council, from the PP, announced that a “collegiate” decision had been made by the local government team so that this magazine would not be distributed in municipal buildings. The reason, Garcia explains, was that it was not in line with what the corporation liked and, therefore, they asked him to stop distributing it because otherwise they would withdraw the copies.
The affected person points out that they are a cultural magazine with reports and interviews that has been distributed, for six years, at no cost to the councils in libraries, cultural houses and city councils regardless of their political color, as happens, she points out, with other regional newspapers. “We do not understand this decision and we do not share it. We have never aligned ourselves with a political party, we talk about culture and we do not question the management of the mayors,” says Garcia.
In fact, the magazine has submitted a document to the City Council to obtain “detailed instructions” on how to distribute the publication in municipal buildings to comply “with the general conditions and avoid inconvenience and arbitrariness.” In addition, they offer to present their editorial project to the mayor to resolve “any possible prejudice or suspicion.”
Given what happened and after publishing the council's decision on her networks, the director explains that individual voluntary subscriptions to financially help the magazine have increased considerably.
