Ione Belarra has charged harshly this Saturday against the PSOE, accusing it of being “a conservative force” that “has been part of the consensus of the ball and speculation for decades”, while boasting of having attracted Bildu and ERC to the Government. During an act on housing in Pamplona, the Minister for Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda has taken out all the dirty laundry from her partner in the coalition government: “I do not forget the systematic meetings that the President of the Government has had with the vulture funds, I do not forget Mr. Ábalos saying that housing is a right but also a market good, I do not forget that it was a socialist minister [María Antonia Trujillo in 2008] who said in the previous crisis that it was time to speed up the evictions…”.

The general secretary of Podemos seems to have given Sumar a temporary truce, after pressing yesterday with her defense of the “right to decide” in Catalonia, but in exchange she has been merciless with the PSOE, offering a painful account of what these have been years of ruling with him. For this, he has given his Housing Law as an example: “The fight for this law reveals what the legislature has been. It has been a very difficult legislature in which we have had to push very hard for the measures to be carried out. We have permanently had to drag a PSOE that does not want these transformations. It tends to preserve what already exists and it tends to keep things as they are,” he denounced..

He has recounted everything that he found out that the PSOE regulated rental prices – “I signed them in 2018 and almost five years had to pass” – and how long it took them to approve their star law, the first in democracy, “conditioning two times the general budgets of the State to continue processing”. “Only when the regional and municipal elections were about to be held was it when the PSOE unblocked the Housing Law,” he pointed out, implying that in the rest of the measures the resistance of the PSOE has been similar.

Defense of Irene Montero

“Everyone said that it was impossible to raise the minimum interprofessional wage and it has been shown to be an effective measure, they also told us that it was impossible to put a cap on the price of gas and it has been the measure that has helped us the most to contain the inflation. It has also happened to us with feminist laws”, has listed. “Does anyone think that, if it had not been for the presence of Irene Montero in the Ministry of Equality, a historic law such as the Trans Law or the Corresponsibles plan or the Law of only yes is yes could have been carried out?” added, coming out in defense of Montero, whom Pedro Sánchez criticized a few days ago during an interview with Carlos Alsina.

Belarra has assured that “what power wants is the restoration of the bipartisanship between the PP and the PSOE”. “What they want is to debate among themselves, exchange proposals among themselves, because what power wants is for everything to stay the same and nothing to change.. We are the only guarantee not only of stopping the right, but also that the political transformations continue, which have not gone as fast as the people want,” he stressed..

It has also expressed its chest for having been the party that has attracted Bildu and ERC to the Government. “Never before had left-wing nationalist forces participated in the governance of the State until Podemos arrived in our country. Does anyone think that Bildu or ERC are going to be able to participate in the governance of the State if Podemos is not strong?”, he warned. And he has predicted that “if the PP and PSOE are strong, after the elections a wild political and media pressure will be unleashed for the PSOE to abstain and the PP to govern”.

Adam, a 24-year-old young man from Sudan, managed to enter Melilla that morning of June 24, 2022 when the attempt to jump the fence that separates Spain from Morocco ended with at least 37 migrants dead, although the Moroccan authorities only recognize 23 deaths.. There were also hundreds of injuries and 77 people are still missing.. The images disseminated on social networks and the media have exposed the actions of the police forces of the neighboring country, which led to a massacre.

A year later, Adam shares his memories of that tragic day in which he lost his friend Anwar. “We were in the camp and they warned us, the day before, that we had to turn ourselves in or face the police.. 'We will not give in', was our response.. The next day, at sunset, we began to descend the mountain,” he recalls.. “We try not to attract attention, moving slowly and making stops. We met other boys who were in the Gurugú”, the story continues.

«We saw in the distance vans of the gendarmes who observed us but did not say anything. It was as if they let us continue. Before we reached the fence, policemen began to appear from all sides, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, which prevented us from seeing. The other group headed towards where the police were, possibly because their eyes were damaged by the gas.. They beat them with batons and anything that would cause damage.. They also threw some bombs that made an unbearable noise. Many boys fell to the ground and others in the forward flight stepped on them, that was run or die. So we broke the door with an electric saw, we managed to open it and cross to Melilla, where a group of friends who had managed to arrive in the jump on March 3, received us.

It was the end of a journey of almost three years since he left his country until he arrived in Morocco together with his compatriots Hussein and Yaya and also his friend Anwar, who lost his life that day.. Due to the tear gas, he took the wrong path and headed towards the area where the fence gave way.

Anwar, one of those who died a year ago in the jump. ANTONIO SEMPERE

That day, 105 people managed to enter Melilla and 470 were returned to Morocco in what the Spanish authorities recognize as “rejections at the border”.. The wounded on the Moroccan side were not treated in hospitals and had to heal as best they could.. Only the most serious were admitted to centers in Nador. The corpses are still deposited in the morgue of this Moroccan city.

makeshift pits

Some survivors say that many of their friends were buried in makeshift graves along the way.. Others were abandoned in the south, near the big cities without food or water.. Now they occupy abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Casablanca, guarded by the Moroccan police who do not let them move.. Musa, 27, is one of those who remain hidden there: “Morocco is a horrible place. The police are very violent and they don't let you beg on the street to eat. They bring us traffickers who tell us that if our family pays some money, we can get to Europe.. If not, they threaten us to return to Libya and I'd rather die here than go back there,” he says.

Something that Yaya, another of the young people who managed to jump the fence and is now following the procedure to obtain asylum in Spain, confirms: “In Libya they sell us as slaves to work and sometimes they don't give us food. Women are sent to gulf countries as slaves too. Nobody does anything against the Libyans who are benefiting from our needs.”

We'll keep looking for our friends

The three young people ask that their stories are not forgotten. They still remember with sadness those days in Melilla, when they cried as they learned the names of the deceased. “I will keep looking for many of my friends while I have strength left. I think those of us who made it through have that responsibility to families that are torn apart,” says Hussein.

In 2020 the Government ordered the removal of the concertinas that crowned the Melilla fence to build a new structure of more than 10 meters high and crowned by cylindrical rollers that prevent climbing but do not cut, so they are less harmful to those who try to jump.

During the week in which the massacre occurred, half a thousand gendarmes and auxiliary forces surrounded the migrant camp and attacked it with gas.. On Tuesday, June 21, there was a brief truce, but on Wednesday and Thursday the violence intensified. On the 23rd, an incursion by another 500 gendarmes caused a fire in the forest that put them in danger. It was the warning of what would happen. They had 24 hours to leave the place or the violence would escalate in the next raid.. With few resources, without food or water, the migrants decided to undertake a risky flight forward, towards the fence.

They had no grappling hooks or ladders to climb the fence, but they had managed to get hold of a chainsaw and some shears.. With these tools, they decided to force one of the gates in the fence so that no one was left behind.. Many were at the limit of their physical strength, without the energy to jump the six-meter wall. The migrants were involved in a confrontation with Moroccan forces upon reaching the Chinatown area, one of the most difficult sections of the fence. As could be seen in the videos distributed through social networks, the migrants were violently ambushed.

The National Human Rights Council of Morocco (CNDH), a body dependent on the Moroccan government, presented a report days later stating that the deaths were caused by “mechanical asphyxia” when the fence gave way due to the weight of the people on it. to her. The Moroccan government blamed the Spanish authorities for the deaths. This conclusion is questioned by the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), which demands an impartial investigation, which a year later has not taken place. Migrants say the real number of victims is higher. There is news of at least a hundred of them.

Pride enters the campaign this year. Not only because of a coincidence of dates, but because the defense of LGTBI rights has directly become an electoral weapon. With one month left for the appointment with the general polls and in the middle of a political earthquake due to the pacts between PP and Vox, the parties have their focus on this group.

Vox opened fire a few days ago with the placement of a gigantic canvas in the center of Madrid, in which a trash can was displayed in which various logos and flags were thrown, including the rainbow. This image, in fact, was used by the president of the PP of Extremadura, María Guardiola, to justify her break with Santiago Abascal's party. “I cannot allow those who unfurl a canvas and throw the LGTBI flag into a bin to enter the government,” Guardiola said.

His words had a clear recipient: the leader of the Valencian PP, Carlos Mazón, who had just signed an agreement with Vox to be sworn in as president of the Generalitat in exchange for his entry into the government. Hence, the PP en bloc, especially in the large cities it governs, has rushed to display the LGTBI flag to mark distances with Vox. The message that is sent to the electorate is clear: that there are pacts with Vox does not mean that the red lines are completely diluted.

Balcony of the Logroño City Hall, with the LGTBI flag. R.. Manzanares EFE

The spokesman Borja Sémper himself, during the presentation on Thursday of the PP campaign, emphasized one of those red lines: the popular “do not want to throw anyone away” and, consequently, “they are not going to let contaminate by aggressiveness”. In the background, the tune of Verano Azul, which in turn has served the PSOE to denounce that Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party seeks its own trip to the past. Specifically, to Chanquete's 80s, “when the LGTBI collective had to hide in the closet.”

Countering this image has been precisely the objective of the new mayoress of Valencia, María José Catalá. The popular leader, who despite the regional pact will lead the consistory in a minority after refusing to even sit down with Vox to negotiate her entry into the government team, announced this Friday that the LGTBI flag will hang from the municipal balcony. Not only that, because in reality this action was already designed by the previous Compromís and PSOE government, but it has also ordered the façade of the consistory to be illuminated with rainbow colors.

At the gates of Pride, the PP of Valencia directly declares itself “reformist but not reactionary”, a position in which Vox is nevertheless located. This is how the municipal spokesman, Juan Carlos Caballero, justified yesterday that Valencia is going to continue turning to these celebrations as in the years of government of the left. “This City Council and this group know that Valencia is a diverse city and they not only want to maintain it, but also to bet on holding these important events,” said Caballero, who even went further by highlighting that “the things that have been done well they want to maintain and even improve”.

It should not be forgotten that, a few kilometers from the Valencian capital, in the municipality of Náquera, the only mayor of Vox has prohibited the LGTBI flag in municipal buildings. So the Valencian Parliament, which on Monday will be chaired by Vox, will wear the colors of Pride all weekend.

Another of the cities that takes out its Pride flag is Logroño. Its mayor, the popular Conrado Escobar, demanded yesterday to “banish any type of sign of intolerance and violence” against the LGTBI collective. In his opinion, the capital of La Rioja “is a city of coexistence, in which everyone fits and can express themselves with absolute tranquility”.

In Madrid, however, its mayor, the popular José Luis Martínez-Almeida, hides behind a Supreme Court ruling so as not to hang the flag from the consistory. Of course, he stressed yesterday the “total and absolute support” of the City Council, which will be illuminated with rainbow colors like the Cibeles fountain.

The discordant note is put by Toledo, who with the entry of Vox into the government will stop wearing the flag. The mayor of the PP, Carlos Velázquez, justified himself by stating that this legislature “requires great consensus”. And all this on the day that Equality launched its video claiming, in what may be the last Pride of Irene Montero, that “Spain is now proudly different.”

Adam, a 24-year-old young man from Sudan, managed to enter Melilla that morning of June 24, 2022 when the attempt to jump the fence that separates Spain from Morocco ended with at least 37 migrants dead, although the Moroccan authorities only recognize 23 deaths.. There were also hundreds of injuries and 77 people are still missing.. The images disseminated on social networks and the media have exposed the actions of the police forces of the neighboring country, which led to a massacre.

A year later, Adam shares his memories of that tragic day in which he lost his friend Anwar. “We were in the camp and they warned us, the day before, that we had to turn ourselves in or face the police.. 'We will not give in', was our response.. The next day, at sunset, we began to descend the mountain,” he recalls.. “We try not to attract attention, moving slowly and making stops. We met other boys who were in the Gurugú”, the story continues.

«We saw in the distance vans of the gendarmes who observed us but did not say anything. It was as if they let us continue. Before we reached the fence, policemen began to appear from all sides, shooting rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, which prevented us from seeing. The other group headed towards where the police were, possibly because their eyes were damaged by the gas.. They beat them with batons and anything that would cause damage.. They also threw some bombs that made an unbearable noise. Many boys fell to the ground and others in the forward flight stepped on them, that was run or die. So we broke the door with an electric saw, we managed to open it and cross to Melilla, where a group of friends who had managed to arrive in the jump on March 3, received us.

It was the end of a journey of almost three years since he left his country until he arrived in Morocco together with his compatriots Hussein and Yaya and also his friend Anwar, who lost his life that day.. Due to the tear gas, he took the wrong path and headed towards the area where the fence gave way.

Anwar, one of those who died a year ago in the jump. ANTONIO SEMPERE

That day, 105 people managed to enter Melilla and 470 were returned to Morocco in what the Spanish authorities recognize as “rejections at the border”.. The wounded on the Moroccan side were not treated in hospitals and had to heal as best they could.. Only the most serious were admitted to centers in Nador. The corpses are still deposited in the morgue of this Moroccan city.

makeshift pits

Some survivors say that many of their friends were buried in makeshift graves along the way.. Others were abandoned in the south, near the big cities without food or water.. Now they occupy abandoned buildings on the outskirts of Casablanca, guarded by the Moroccan police who do not let them move.. Musa, 27, is one of those who remain hidden there: “Morocco is a horrible place. The police are very violent and they don't let you beg on the street to eat. They bring us traffickers who tell us that if our family pays some money, we can get to Europe.. If not, they threaten us to return to Libya and I'd rather die here than go back there,” he says.

Something that Yaya, another of the young people who managed to jump the fence and is now following the procedure to obtain asylum in Spain, confirms: “In Libya they sell us as slaves to work and sometimes they don't give us food. Women are sent to gulf countries as slaves too. Nobody does anything against the Libyans who are benefiting from our needs.”

We'll keep looking for our friends

The three young people ask that their stories are not forgotten. They still remember with sadness those days in Melilla, when they cried as they learned the names of the deceased. “I will keep looking for many of my friends while I have strength left. I think those of us who made it through have that responsibility to families that are torn apart,” says Hussein.

In 2020 the Government ordered the removal of the concertinas that crowned the Melilla fence to build a new structure of more than 10 meters high and crowned by cylindrical rollers that prevent climbing but do not cut, so they are less harmful to those who try to jump.

During the week in which the massacre occurred, half a thousand gendarmes and auxiliary forces surrounded the migrant camp and attacked it with gas.. On Tuesday, June 21, there was a brief truce, but on Wednesday and Thursday the violence intensified. On the 23rd, an incursion by another 500 gendarmes caused a fire in the forest that put them in danger. It was the warning of what would happen. They had 24 hours to leave the place or the violence would escalate in the next raid.. With few resources, without food or water, the migrants decided to undertake a risky flight forward, towards the fence.

They had no grappling hooks or ladders to climb the fence, but they had managed to get hold of a chainsaw and some shears.. With these tools, they decided to force one of the gates in the fence so that no one was left behind.. Many were at the limit of their physical strength, without the energy to jump the six-meter wall. The migrants were involved in a confrontation with Moroccan forces upon reaching the Chinatown area, one of the most difficult sections of the fence. As could be seen in the videos distributed through social networks, the migrants were violently ambushed.

The National Human Rights Council of Morocco (CNDH), a body dependent on the Moroccan government, presented a report days later in which it stated that the deaths were caused by “mechanical suffocation”” when the fence gave way due to the weight of the people on it. to her. The Moroccan government blamed the Spanish authorities for the deaths. This conclusion is questioned by the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), which demands an impartial investigation, which a year later has not taken place. Migrants say the real number of victims is higher. There is news of at least a hundred of them.