The Department of Safety and Security will be charged by 14 organizations for violating the Memory Act by authorizing Falange's act in Vitoria

14 institutions for the recovery of historical memory will file a complaint with the Human Rights and Victim Assistance Directorate of the Basque Government against the Department of Security of the Basque Government, which, according to the complaint, violated the Euskadi Historical and Democratic Memory Act by allowing the Falange to hold an event in the streets of Vitoria-Gasteiz on 12 October, and will urge the Basque Government to open a legal case. "

According to a statement, "the authorization of the rally and the offer of support to fascists makes it possible to make an apology for Francoism and violates the laws of memory by those responsible for the police".

In the opinion of these groups, with the act the Falange had "a clear intention of expressing contempt and humiliation for the victims of the Franco dictatorship, seeking a confrontation, and deliberately used a city that had experienced in its own flesh the horror of the Franco repression, both in the first compass of the coup and in the late Francoism, with the well-known massacre of the workers on 3 March 1976."

These institutions consider these acts to be administrative offences under Chapter XII of Law 9/2023 of 28 September on the Historical and Democratic Memory of the Basque Country (punitive regime) and Law 20/2022 of the Spanish Democratic Memory.

They also condemn the "inaction of the police officers of the Autonomous Community and the City Council, who had in their hands the administrative option of preventing such incidents, either by revoking the authorization of the demonstration, or by preventing the concentration and/or dismantling the concentration after verification of the actions being carried out there", but who, they say, were "protected".

Lack of measures to prevent concentration

They believe that "the failure of the police officers present to take the necessary measures to prevent or put an end to conduct contrary to the laws of remembrance makes them perpetrators of the facts and therefore subject to responsibility".

They therefore request "to investigate and, where appropriate, apply the penalties applicable to the organizers of the event and those responsible for police operations, both municipal and autonomous, and, failing that, to the final officials, the Deputy Councillor for Security of the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Security Adviser of the Basque Government".

The plaintiffs also request that they be considered "victims of the offence, in order to exercise their right to be informed of the status of the proceedings, to be monitored and to be able to appear".

They also urge the Basque Government to urge the Spanish Government to "open a legal file for the outlawing and dissolution of the Falange Española party for repeated non-compliance with the laws of the Basque Country and Spain".