Magazines in Catalan are back in Borriana’s library (Valencian Community), after the social pressure due to the attempted censorship of the PP and Vox-led local government. Publications such as Cavall Fort, Enderrock, El Temps, Camacuc and Revista Llengua Nacional are once again available to the public, according to El Temps magazine. The news was announced by Vicent Granel, Compromís’ spokesperson in Borriana, who stated that the pressure exerted “has been able to overturn the decision ordered by the current Culture councillor”, Jesús Albiol (Vox).
Granel said it was “good news” that “the call-out and the social and cultural movement created around the defence of freedom of expression and freedom to read whatever one wants” has worked. “Borriana received a lot of support from publishers and writers, many people of culture in our city have spoken out publicly against the decision, and have joined the demands to keep them,” said the Valencian councillor.
Subscriptions since PP times
Vicent Granel thanked “the government team’s consideration”, although he pointed out, “they pretended everything was an invention when in reality an order was given for no more magazines to arrive”. The councillor also pointed out that the town council has a subscription and the magazines have been in the library since the time when the PP was in office, in the 2000s, which is why he expressed his surprise at the fact a PP-led town council was now trying to veto them. “Now the magazines need to continue in the library, as they have been since the time of the PP in the 2000s, and throughout our tenure”, concluded Granel.
Two weeks of veto
In mid-July it became known that the Borriana town council cancelled its subscriptions to five Catalanist magazines. In 2020, Vox unsuccessfully asked the town council to unsubscribe from these magazines. Now, 3 years later, the PP-led local government of Borriana (Castelló) decided to do so. Jesús Albiol, Culture councillor and Vox MP to the Valencian Parliament, celebrated that the town council “will not continue to promote Catalan separatism with the people of Borriana’s money. We are not second-class Catalans, we are first-class Valencians and Spaniards,” he wrote on his Twitter account. “Camacuc, Cavall Fort, El Temps, Enderrock, Llengua Nacional. AWAY WITH YOU!”, said the councillor.
Mobilisations and legal action
The publishers of Catalan-language magazines reacted to the PP and Vox’s veto of five magazines in Catalan in the Borriana library, grouped in the Catalan Periodicals Association (APPEC), by threatening to take legal action to report the censorship. They also filed a complaint to the European institutions and a formal complaint to the Valencian ombudsman. To fight against the censorship that is being carried out by the right and the far-right against Catalanist magazines, the APPEC also announced it will promote subscriptions to publications “everywhere where censorship is taking place”. In addition, a legal team was made available to the affected publications: Cavall Fort, Enderrock, Camacuc, El Temps and Llengua Nacional. A thousand people rallied in Borriana in rejection of the censorship. The magazines were supported by Catalan social groups Òmnium Cultural and Plataforma per la Llengua [Platform for Catalan language]. Laura Vilagrà, Catalan minister of the Presidency; Anna Erre, president of the Catalan Parliament; and Oriol Duran, Catalan Minister of Media also publicly supported them.
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