Protest called in Cartagena against repeal of LGBT rights law
Rights groups are trying to defend their hard-won rights from being taken away in Murcia
A rally has been organised outside the Regional Assembly in Cartagena to protest against ongoing attacks and threats from the far right, aimed at pressuring the regional government to repeal Law 8/2016, which protects the rights of the LGTBIQ+ community.
The demonstration, scheduled for Tuesday February 25 at 5pm, has been called by the associations ‘Lo tienes claro’ from Los Alcázares and the Association of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Activists in Cartagena and Comarca (GALACTYCO). The organisers have urged all social, political and trade union organisations, along with the general public, to attend in support of LGTBIQ+ rights.
“We are witnessing a social regression largely sponsored by the political class who offer their parliamentary support in exchange for denying rights to groups such as ours,” said Mar Tornero, president of GALACTYCO. ‘They use us as a bargaining chip because they hate diversity and want to go back in time to the dark ages to which we are not willing to return.’
The protest follows the Vox Parliamentary Group’s recent move to register a motion in the Regional Assembly calling for the ‘immediate’ repeal of Law 8/2016. This law, passed on May 27, 2016, aims to ensure social equality for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgender and intersex individuals and promote public policies against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the Region of Murcia.María José Ruiz, Vox’s deputy spokesperson, justified the motion by referencing statements made by the national leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on repealing similar laws at the national level. She urged the Popular Party to follow through by abandoning what she termed “gender identity politics and woke politics”.
Ruiz further claimed that “these delirious policies” have enabled minors to access hormone treatments and irreversible surgeries without parental consent and have encouraged ‘indoctrination’ in schools. She asserted that both the Popular Party and the Socialist Party have promoted such policies at different levels of government.
In 2022, Vox failed in a motion to get the LGBTIQ+ flag removed from the Regional Assembly building in Murcia.
In response to the latest political push, more than a hundred people gathered on Saturday February 8 in the Plaza de los Derechos de las Personas LGTBIQ+ in Murcia to protest against LGTBIQ+phobia and recent attacks. The demonstration, organised by the collective No te Prives, saw protestors holding banners with messages such as ‘Long live diversity, down with hate’, ‘if they touch us, they touch us all’ and ‘LGTBIQ+ rights are human rights; against the repeal of the regional LGTBI law.’
Protestors also highlighted attacks on LGTBIQ+ symbols in public spaces, including the removal of the rainbow flag from the square where the protest took place. Concerns were raised about the future of Checkpoint, a municipal healthcare centre for early HIV and STI detection.
LGTBI+ secretary for the PSOE in the Region of Murcia, Pencho Soto, who attended the demonstration, vowed that activists would not allow “even one step backwards in the rights we have won”.
Criticising Vox’s attempts to dismantle protections for the community, he stated, “It is shameful that a party like Vox, whose political ideology is to repeal the rights of LGTBI+ people and return to the darkest times of our society, is once again imposing hatred and discrimination.”
This Tuesday February 18, Vox withdrew its proposal to eliminate subsidies to employers and trade unions while the PP has promised to look into reforming the law regulating these subsidies, the Law of Institutional Participation of the Region of Murcia, in order to reach an agreement to be able to approve the regional budgets for this year.
You may also like: This is Spain’s dedicated helpline for victims of LGBTIphobia
Image 1: Asamblea Regional de Murcia
Image 2: GALACTYCO
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