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- Now Murcia will defend a motion in the next Plenary session to "enforce the Law of Historical Memory and, further, for an ethical commitment to democracy, to the victims of Franco's repression and to our history"

NOW MURCIA demands that the City Council withdraw the Gold Medal from the City of Murcia to the dictator Franco, which the Consistory granted him in 1946. The spokeswoman for the municipal formation, Alicia Morales, considers "surprising" that Franco keeps the maximum recognition granted by the city and demands that it be withdrawn "so that the Law of Historical Memory is fulfilled and, further on, by an ethical commitment to democracy, with the victims of Franco's repression and with our history".

Now Murcia will take this issue to the next plenary session in the form of a motion, with the purpose that "Murcia joins at once the extensive list of municipalities throughout Spain that have stripped the dictator of the gold medal."

Morales explains that, according to information provided by the Mayor's Office, Franco's decoration is still valid, "without us having evidence that any procedure has been initiated to render it ineffective."

The distinction was granted to Francisco Franco on April 29, 1946, during his visit to the city of Murcia due to the floods that had occurred the previous days.

In the course of the visit, Franco delivered a speech harangued the masses from the balcony of the City Hall, and in the Plenary Hall of the Consistory, following the usual guidelines and ceremonies of the official propaganda of the Franco regime in the visits of the dictator to cities of the country, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the City of Murcia, something that was profuse echo the chronicles and means of the time.

"The public institutions," stresses the councilor, "have the duty to promote the values ​​and democratic principles of the rule of law: the condemnation of the coup d'etat, the Franco dictatorship and the repression that it subjected to thousands of citizens of this country, also in our municipality, is among these values ​​".

In this sense, Morales notes that "apart from this case of Franco, which is particularly flagrant, the City of Murcia will soon have to review the awarding of distinctions by the Consistory to different characters of the Franco dictatorship."

The mayor recalls that in 2007 the Law of Historical Memory was passed in Spain, which in its Article 15.1, establishes that "Public Administrations, in the exercise of their powers, shall take the appropriate measures for the removal of shields, badges, plaques and other objects or commemorative mentions of exaltation, personal or collective, of the military uprising, the Civil War and the repression of the Dictatorship. "

"From Now Murcia", underlines Morales, "we understand that this Corporation, in the exercise of its responsibility in the defense of democracy and constitutional values, should withdraw its maximum decoration to the greatest representative of the dictatorship, responsible for the blackest period in The recent history of our country We conceive this withdrawal of the Medal, also, as a tribute to all victims and reprisals by the dictatorship, and as a commitment to justice and freedom that we owe to our elders and we must transmit to our daughters and sons".

The councilor notes that, in addition, "we can not continue allowing people who subsequently received and continue to receive the Gold Medal of Murcia, which must be a source of pride and prestige, are sharing with the dictator, likewise that our city should feel proud of all the people who hold this recognition. "

This is how many Spanish cities have understood that, since the first years of democracy, they have been withdrawing the honors and mentions that were once granted to Franco, in a process that has accelerated in recent years since the approval of the aforementioned Law of Historical Memory, in most cases unanimously by all political groups.

Among the cities that have taken "this step of democratic normality" are Madrid, Valencia, León, Salamanca, Malaga, Pamplona, ​​San Sebastian or Mallorca, among many others, and Murcia, affirms Alicia Morales, "it is time that add to them, making the seventh municipality of Spain fulfill its duties with the repair of historical memory.

NOW MURCIA

Source: Ahora Murcia