The Ministry of Health has recommended this Wednesday that the 8-M demonstrations should not be held due to the epidemiological situation, despite the fact that Spain has come out of the extreme risk situation.
Minister Carolina Darias has assured, after the Interterritorial Health Council, that "there is no place" to hold the marches for International Women's Day.
Darias has made these statements hours after the Government delegate in Madrid, José Manuel Franco, announced that he will prohibit all calls for that date in the capital (which is still at extreme risk along with the Basque Country) that have a forecast higher than 500 attendees, meeting the criteria of the Ministry of Health, so that "absolutely there will be" a great feminist protest in the capital, like last year or previous years, he indicated in an interview in Onda Madrid.
At the moment, the delegation has received and authorized some requests from feminist organizations to demonstrate for International Women's Day because they are small concentrations that "maintain the required parameters" in the health situation, and that undertake to comply with the safety distance .
At the moment, no application has been vetoed or received from political parties or "specific relevant persons."
Minister Darias has been asked, at the press conference after the Interterritorial Health Council, about the upcoming celebrations scheduled for this day and if she would attend them, as she did last year with other women from her party and members of the Government.
Days after her presence at the March 8, the minister confirmed her positive for coronavirus.
The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias during a press conference on February 10.
On video, the minister advises against celebrating March 8 (EUROPA PRESS)
"For the consistency of a call to responsibility that I have made, since we are still in a situation of extreme risk, there is no place," replied the head of Health.
And he added, "without any hesitation", that to "continue with the culture of care and prevention" the current situation does not allow to carry out acts to commemorate Women's Day.
"We are following the Health criteria to the letter because we have to help preserve the health of the people of Madrid", Franco pointed out.
To those organizations that intend to take more people to the streets on March 8, he has asked them to reflect and also alternative formulas to demonstrate "so that this just claim does not imply an attack against health."
Madrilenian politicians have already positioned themselves in this regard, with differing opinions within the parties themselves.
The vice president of Madrid, Ignacio Aguado, has assured that it is legitimate to demonstrate on March 8, if the health recommendations are followed, and has indicated that, if the march is held, he himself and members of Ciudadanos will attend, although the vice mayor of the city, Begoña Villacís, has already said that she will not go because she considers it a great irresponsibility.
The mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, has advocated that there are no demonstrations in the streets due to the difficulty that it can be to control 500 people and because the institutions cannot transmit what he describes as misleading messages in the current situation.
After underlining that the central government should “sing the
mea culpa
and apologize” for the 2020 demonstration, Almeida has recommended total and absolute prudence for this year.
The mayor has also referred to the suspension of "many traditional events" throughout the year such as the 8-M demonstrations and has suggested that "maybe from the Government as well, if only for a symbolic issue, it should be to propose another way of celebrating it that was not through rallies in the streets ”.
In video, statements by José Manuel Franco, Government delegate in Madrid, in Onda Madrid.Inma Flores / Video: EPV
Regarding the controversy generated by the mobilization last year, Franco has indicated that he does not regret having authorized it, not only because the justice has agreed with him, but because then "there was no objective data to prohibit a demonstration, which can only be prohibited for very specific and valued reasons ”.
“I am satisfied that I did.
This could be contagious, but what would be prevaricating at that time would be to prohibit it.
Hitting the pool on Mondays is easy and if we knew what was going to happen, we would also ban sports, cultural or competitive events, ”he argued.
After accumulating more than 3,000 instruction sheets in three months and calling the Government delegate as a defendant, amid great media expectations, Judge Carmen Rodríguez Medel decided last June to archive the case investigating the authorization of these mobilizations.
"There is not enough evidence of criminal activity in the events attributed to Franco," indicated the order that shelved a case opened on March 23.
The magistrate concluded that the Government delegate "did not have a certain, objective and technical knowledge of the risk that the holding of demonstrations and rallies posed to people's health" at the time of the expansion of the suspected coronavirus, which included the feminist march March 8.
In addition, the judge stressed that Franco "did not receive communication or health instruction on this matter, nor did he obtain it ex officio from any competent authority in the health field" and "no natural or legal person, public or private, urged him to prohibit or restrict [concentrations] ”.
Franco has pointed out that the most obvious proof that there is freedom of expression and full democracy in Spain is, for example, that demonstrations were held last week in the center of Madrid in favor of rapper Pablo Hasél without having communicated them to the delegation.
“I agree to perfect freedom of expression, which some laws limit.
But legitimate protest is one thing and vandalism is another, which cannot be allowed and which is not allowed in any democracy in the world ”, he pointed out.
According to what he said regarding the demonstration on Wednesday in Puerta del Sol, the National Police cordoned off the area around the perimeter and there were people who threw objects at the agents, "who had to carry out a commendable containment exercise."
The Government delegate has indicated that they have no record of organized groups as such that caused the disturbances, but of people who, according to his words, take advantage of these freedoms of a democratic State for purposes that have nothing to do with any claim.
“Anyone who is dedicated to blowing up shop windows or wastebaskets has no desire to claim.
The police know of some cases of people who are going to blow up the demonstrations ”, he added.