The Congress definitively withdraws the press accreditation from Vito Quiles

BarcelonaCongress has decided to definitively withdraw the press accreditation of Vito Quiles. The bureau of the lower house took this decision after having already decided to suspend him provisionally in May and withdrawing it for three months. This Tuesday, the progressive majority of the Congress bureau decided to definitively withdraw his accreditation after analyzing the proposal from the legal counsel. Specifically, three very serious offenses were taken into account: "obstruction of press conferences and dissemination on social media of images obtained by violating the house's rules," parliamentary sources point out. The PP did not vote on the decision taken by the Congress bureau this Tuesday.

"The reiteration, given that he was already suspended for previous serious infractions, results in the classification of each of the three new resolved infractions as very serious, each of which entails the definitive withdrawal of accreditation," the same sources report. In other words, the Congress bureau had already provisionally suspended the accreditation of Quiles, linked to Javier Negre's EDA TV platform, due to the accumulation of complaints regarding his behavior. In fact, there were up to nine complaints against him that had to be resolved and which led to his definitive expulsion if the sanctioning regime of the new parliamentary regulation were applied.

For some time now, Quiles' interruptions at press conferences of parliamentary groups in Congress have been common, in addition to intimidation of journalists and politicians from left-wing parties. One of the files opened against him, which served as the trigger for his expulsion, was the unauthorized recording of images of former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero last December. Congressional staff warned him that it was forbidden to record the former socialist leader in that restricted area and to publish them, but he recorded them anyway and posted them on social media. With the regulations in hand, which Congress reformed precisely to be able to act against far-right agitators—Bertrand Ndongo of Periodista Digital also has his accreditation temporarily suspended—, Quiles faced expulsion of between eleven days and three months. However, given the repeated offenses, the Bureau of the chamber has decided that this expulsion should be permanent.

The Bureau has also resolved the file that was open for his interruption of a press conference by the PSOE spokesperson, Patxi López. Apart from these two cases, in July, the Bureau sanctioned him again with a one-month withdrawal of his accreditation for having interrupted a press conference by the Secretary General of Podemos, Ione Belarra. The PP did not vote in the debate held this Tuesday by the Congress Bureau. The 'populars', in fact, had already shown themselves to be against the decision of the PSOE and Sumar to temporarily suspend Quiles' accreditation in the month of May. Precisely, the far-right agitator has no limitations in the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority—Quiles participated in an election event of the PP in Aragon—.