Alex Trelinski
PROSECUTORS have launched a hate crime probe into a Vox councillor in Valencia over social media postings about a black Podemos politician.
Cecilia Herrero- a member of the Valencia government team- has been denounced by the left-wing regional Compromis party for her ‘racist and xenophobic messages’.
A few weeks ago, Herro suggested that former Madrid Assembly member and Podemos candidate for next month’s European Parliament elections, Serigne Mbaye, needed to ‘go back’ to his country.
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The deputy prosecutor of the hate crimes section, Susana Gisbert, will be in charge of the proceedings.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has six months to complete an investigation that was started following a complaint by Compromís.
It will have to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed with the complaint or whether to file the matter.
Compromís expanded its complaint earlier this month after allegedly finding a history of comments against the migrant population by Herrero on social media.
Some of the comments reported were ‘enough of sponsoring the Moor- national resources for the Spaniards’ and ‘so much reconquest to end up paying for the invasion of the Moors’.
Compromis spokesperson, Papi Robles, said: “We cannot lower our heads in the face of the threats of a councillor who is explicitly racist and fascist.”
Cecilia Herrero has received backing from her three Vox council colleagues who are in coalition with the Partido Popular(PP) in running Valencia City Council.
Vox council spokesperson, Juan Manuel Badenas, branded the opening of legal proceedings as a ‘case of lawfare’ and ‘a clear example of the use of legal instruments to persecute a political opponent’.
The PP mayor, Maria Jose Catala, said on Wednesday that the partnership with Vox is focused on managing Valencia and ‘we do not have to share methods or ways of seeing politics’.
She added that she will wait for the conclusion from the Prosecutor’s Office.
When asked if she was comfortable being in a government team with a councillor who has posted controversial comments, Jose Catala stressed that she belongs to the PP ‘and obviously we are not the same party’.
