Aragón repeals the autonomous memory law with the votes of PP, Vox and PAR

The Government of Aragon (PP-Vox) has carried out this Thursday one of the measures that it announced last August, when it was established: the repeal of the Autonomous Democratic Memory Law that the Government of the socialist Javier Lambán approved in the previous legislature.

In addition to the votes of the PP and Vox in the regional courts, the only representative of the Aragonese Party (PAR) has been added, despite the fact that in 2018 he did just the opposite: support the law.

They have had the rest of the Chamber in front of them: all the left-wing parties (PSOE, CHA, Podemos and IU) and Teruel Exist, who have accused the Aragonese president, the popular Jorge Azcón, of succumbing to the wishes of the extreme right, main driver of the repeal.

“Azcón did not have it in the program,” stressed the CHA deputy, José Luis Soro.”

“Today is a day of deep satisfaction,” said Vox spokesperson Santiago Morón, before adding: “This disastrous law has been, like all other memory laws, a political tool of social unrest designed to confront the Spanish people.” ”.

The repeal of the autonomous norm implies, among other things, that the democratic memory census of Aragon, the registry of memorial entities and the memory web portal that the Aragonese Government had were eliminated.

Regarding the genetic database that the previous Executive had created, it will now be sent, “with the consent of the interested parties”, to the state DNA bank of victims of the war and the dictatorship, according to the text with which the Government de Azcón has defended the repeal.

Much more diffuse is regarding public aid for memorial associations to exhume the remains of victims.

From now on, these aids “are subject to the corresponding justification in accordance with the provisions of the corresponding calls and regulatory bases.”

In any case, in Aragon, as in all of Spain, the national Democratic Memory Law continues to govern, which the Aragonese Cortes have no jurisdiction to repeal.

The PP deputy Ana Marín defends the repeal of the memory law in the plenary session of the Cortes of Aragon. JAVIER BELVER (EFE)

The two government partners have used an emergency procedure with a single reading to repeal the autonomous law, which has intensified criticism from the opposition.

“They have not had the gallantry to discuss it through an ordinary procedure because then the memorialist associations that could not be heard here would have had a place,” the socialist Daniel Alastuey has reproached them.

Some 200 members of these associations, which bring together relatives of those who were retaliated against during the Franco dictatorship, have gathered at the doors of the Aljafería Palace, headquarters of the regional Parliament.

“Today the rights of those who died in the war and in repression are being taken away,” said Anabel Lapuente, spokesperson for the Aragon Memory Platform.

Next to her, Rosa, granddaughter and son of those shot, asserted: “There is no empathy.”

For the PP, deputy Ana Marín has been in charge of defending the repeal, while President Jorge Azcón listened to her from the bench without intervening.

“All victims were victims.

Whatever they did, whatever they thought or whatever uniform they wore, they are all victims and do not deserve distinction,” said Marín.

The Azcón Government assures that it will now promote, to replace the repealed law, a “concord plan”, whose text and scope are not yet known.