Tension in Mondragón during the tributes of PP and Vox to the victims of ETA Parot

The strong police control (a fortnight of vans and several Ertzaintza cars) that this Saturday has shielded the Garibaldi square, in Mondragón (Gipuzkoa), has prevented followers of Vox and radicals of the self-styled anti-fascist youths from coming into contact and produced incidents, although finally the police charged to disperse the radicals and they stoned the cars of the party of Santiago Abascal's party. Despite the insults that one and the other have crossed, the far-right party has been able to celebrate its act in favor of the victims of the bloodthirsty ETA member Henri Parot, who is in prison serving a sentence for 39 murders. During the protest several firecrackers have exploded.

It has been an intense morning in the industrial town of Gipuzkoa that began at 10:30 am with an act of the PP next to the pavilion in which the prison official José Antonio Ortega Lara was kidnapped by ETA for 532 days between 1996 and 1997, and that has returned to normal after 1:30 p.m., when the Vox caravan left the town in several buses and about thirty cars.

Both parties had called these acts of rejection against the terrorist group to respond to the tribute initially organized for today by the nationalist left in honor of Henri Parot and that on Friday was finally suspended.

More information

• 'The use of terrorism', by Luis R. Aizpeolea

Between one and another act of PP and Vox, the radicals of the

left

have held a rally in front of the City Hall in which they have asked for amnesty for ETA prisoners and have called the popular leaders and the Abascal party "fascists". At another point in Mondragón, the Sare network, which yesterday called off the march in favor of Parot, has brought together its people to demand that the Penal Code be changed, which now raises the penalties for terrorist crimes to 40 years in prison.

The PP, which has transformed the act of support for the victims into an attack on the Prime Minister for having EH Bildu as support in the Congress of Deputies, has had the presence of some members of Vox, although they have not participated in the scenery organized by the popular ones. An act in which the president of the Basque PP, Carlos Iturgaiz, has indicated that Henri Parot, "like others of his kind", are "individuals worthy of being represented in the terror chamber of any wax museum." Iturgaiz took advantage of the event to claim its proximity to Genoa: "In this event is the PP of the Basque Country and Navarra, the PP of Spain, the PP of Pablo Casado." The National Deputy Secretary for Organization and President of the Popular of Navarra, Ana Beltrán, has accused the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez,of being “the shepherd who cares for the wolves”, and has urged him to choose between being with “the victims of ETA terrorism or with the executioners”.

The tension has started to skyrocket when the Garibaldi square has been filled with Spanish flags and “cheers” for Spain. It was approaching noon and the shouts increased from the nearby balconies and from outside the perimeter that protected the Ertzaintza. Voices that were countered with Manolo Escobar's "Que viva España", which could be heard through the home megaphone carried by some supporters of Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox. Ortega Lara himself, with a sign that read "Justice", made his way to the center of the square, where the president of Voces Contra el Terrorismo, Francisco José Alcaraz, has accused judges and prosecutors of "staining the hands with the blood of the victims ”, for not having prohibited the march in favor of Parot, finally called off by its organizers.

Moments before the Vox caravan began to leave the square, the Ertzaintza charged against several radicals for trying to bypass the security cordon and arrested one of them. Several stones have hit the buses and cars that transported the supporters of the extreme right-wing force and, according to various sources, although this fact has not been officially confirmed, one of them has hit a Vox follower. The radicals have organized another march at seven in the afternoon in Mondragón.