“Hunts for hooded men and thugs”… Mr. Sánchez, we are seeing it

The brutal attack suffered this Thursday by the EL ESPAÑOL journalist José Ismael Martínez on the campus of the University of Navarra represents a frontal attack against freedom of the press and democracy.

But it is not an isolated or casual event. It is the direct consequence of years of systematic accusations against independent journalism. Of complacent tolerance for the street violence of the extreme left a patriot. To look the other way while it grows in plain sight.

In the session of the Congress of Deputies on October 23, the spokesperson for EH Bildu Mertxe Aizpurua listed a long list of alleged episodes of far-right violence:

“Fascists in Gasteiz, ultras at the University of Barcelona, ​​Nazi hunts in Torre Pacheco, Francoists in Ferraz, neo-fascists, hooded men threatening in videos and ultra thugs evicting people. Mr. Sánchez“We’re seeing it.”

Aizpurua demanded that day “firm measures” against the “extreme right” and asked that the institutions “end the spaces of impunity enjoyed by Francoism and Spanish fascism.”

Yesterday, in Navarra, Martínez was cornered, kicked to the ground and savagely beaten by hooded men while he was carrying out his professional duty: reporting.

He was wearing his accreditation visible, he identified himself as a journalist. Nothing mattered. The violent people who yelled at him “stop recording, son of a bitch” knew perfectly well who they were attacking.

And they chose to do it because they have been hearing for years that certain journalists are the enemy.

This violence has a name: street fight. For decades, the street violence of ETA’s cubs was the instrument of the Basque radical left to frighten, persecute and silence those who thought differently. Today he came back, with the same way of working and the same objectives.

The National Police has informed EL ESPAÑOL that the return of the street fight It is already a reality in the streets of the Basque Country and Navarra.

The hooded pro-ETA men who took over the University of Navarra yesterday, exactly seventeen years after the last ETA attack against the institutionthey are not spontaneous. They are the most brutal manifestation of a political culture that never condemned terrorism and that continues to legitimize violence when it serves its purposes.

It is not surprising that this happens when from the Congress of Deputies, Mertxe Aizpurua, the same one who pointed out objectives to ETA from the pages of do itthe same one that titled Ortega Lara returns to prison After 532 days of kidnapping, she now stands as a censor of “hunts”, “signaling” and “ultra thugs”, without the President of the Government addressing her a single reproach.

When political power turns journalism into a target, when it denies them the status of professionals and degrades them to “agitators” or “tabloids”, it is opening the door for others to take the next step.

Yesterday’s violent people in Pamplona gave it. They believed, or wanted to believe, that they could attack a journalist with impunity because from the tribunes of Congress they have been telling them for years that certain media do not deserve respect.

The University of Navarra must exhaustively investigate these events and facilitate all collaboration with the Security Forces. The press associations, some of them very quick to condemn mere irrelevant agitators, must denounce these events with the forcefulness they deserve.

Those responsible must, for their part, be identified, arrested and brought to justice..

But EL ESPAÑOL also wants to demand responsibility, not from the parties that have justified ETA violence and that continue today to honor murderers, but from those who whitewash them for the sole reason that they need their votes.

There are those who will say that Vito Quiles He is a provocateur. It can be. But Quiles has never attacked anyone.

On the other hand, those who claim to fight against “his fascism”, who present themselves as anti-fascists, brutally beat a defenseless journalist yesterday, which also has nothing to do with Vito Quilesfor the simple fact of recording their illegal demonstration.

That is the difference between the word and the fist, between democracy and barbarism.

José Ismael Martínez ended up lying on the ground, covering his head while being kicked. It is the most honest image of what happens when accusations are normalized, when those who never condemned terrorism are legitimized, when political power degrades independent journalism.

When violence is sown from institutions, sooner or later it ends up crystallizing on the street.