Mónica Oltra as a reminder

The news, which you can read in The chronicle by Daniel Martín Fernández This newspaper reports that the Provincial Court of Valencia has reopened its case against Mónica Oltra (former leader of Compromís and Vice President of the Valencian Government under the Botànic coalition) for allegedly covering up the abuse of a minor by her ex-husband, Luis Eduardo Ramírez. Judge Pedro Castellano (who presides over the fourth section of the Valencian Provincial Court, known for its bias in favor of the People's Party in previous cases), along with Judges Isabel Sifres and Clara Eugenia Bayarri, decided to reopen the case at the request of far-right organizations acting as private prosecutors (represented by the far-right activist Cristina Seguí) and the victim's lawyer, José Luis Roberto, former president of España 2000 and another prominent figure in the Valencian far right. The judges, however, rejected the opinion of the investigating judge and even the Public Prosecutor's Office, who had dismissed any evidence of criminal conduct on Oltra's part.

This Valencian politician's case is a textbook example of persecution, cruelty, and judicial dirty tricks. It serves as a bitter reminder of two defining characteristics of the victors of the Spanish Civil War and their ideological heirs: revenge and defamation. They don't have adversaries: they have enemies. And it's not enough for them to defeat the enemy: they need to destroy them. Once they have seized their position and power, once they have been stripped of all preeminence, it becomes necessary to proceed with their personal demolition. One of the Spanish right's preferred instruments for achieving this is defamation. Hanging a barrage of lies, the more hurtful the better, on that person's name, who will then have to dedicate their life to trying to cleanse themselves of the avalanche of filth that has been heaped upon them, most of the time without fully succeeding. If the defamation can also involve the family and loved ones of the target, all the better. The Francoist dictatorship consisted, among other things, of forty years of defamation and scorn against the families of the thousands of people executed, tortured, and imprisoned by fascism.

Mónica Oltra reminds us that the Spanish right wing knows nothing of concord, however cynically it invokes this word to oppose policies of historical and democratic memory. Nor does it know mercy, not even when enough is enough, because it is never enough for them. Once they've bitten, they don't open the bars: they keep biting far beyond what makes sense. Pepe Rubianes, for example, was held criminally responsible, even after his death, for having "offended honor," during the controversy surrounding the Salamanca papersTo the mayor of the city, Julián Lanzarote. Because, don't forget, these vengeful slanderers are honorable patriots.