The president of the CCMA, Rosa Romà, and the director of TV3, Sigfrid Gras, agreed yesterday that the gag in which the Virgin of the Rocío was parodied in the program Està passador will not be withdrawn because it is "framed" in law to freedom of expression. They responded in this way, during the CCMA control commission in Parliament, to the demand of the PSC, Vox and Ciutadans groups to withdraw this gag because they consider it offensive to believers and also to Catalan society of Andalusian origin.
Romà defended his position by appealing to the resolution of the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia in which it is pointed out that "satirical expression is a manifestation of the free opinion of ideas, beliefs and value judgments, which is used as an instrument of denunciation and social criticism", even if the aforementioned satirical expressions can "be unfortunate and even hurtful". In his opinion, "this gag must be seen in the context of a comedy show; satire does not always appeal to everyone, but this is freedom of expression and, therefore, we respect the content of the program”.
Sigfrid Gras was in the same line, who lamented "a political use" of the gag in a pre-electoral context. He defended that TV3 uses humor about Catalans and about other religious beliefs other than Catholicism (he appealed to a Poland gag broadcast after the Está passant gag) and reaffirmed that humor "is part of the DNA of our television".
"Humor is a symptom of democratic quality, which brings more to all of us and is one of the symbols of TV3", he continued to add after that "we will persist with our possible risks, but in the obligation of Catalan public television there is humor, no matter how many criticisms we have". Gras commented that he would have preferred that on Tuesday, April 4, in the draw that took place in the Está pasador about which character they had to interview, Judas had come out, "to avoid these problems", all and that this does not mean that any type of rectification is considered.
"We find ourselves thrown into controversies because we are a transcendent television but we do not expressly seek them", continued the director of the chain, who denied that there were any sponsors who left Està pasador. "We want to be the television for all Catalans, regardless of their ideology", he emphasized to insist afterwards that if they had to remove all the gags that have offended someone "we should remove everything because someone always gets angry" .
