2023-07-22 17:41:39
Grupo Prisa, a Spanish media conglomerate, of which the newspaper El País and Cadena SER are part, has used one of its editorials to expose the ultra-right party Vox, which they say has exercised a systematic veto to prevent its collaborators from exercising journalistic work, thus affecting press freedom.
According to the editorial titled “Vox vetoes EL PAÍS”, the obstacles to journalistic practice date back to 2019, a time when arguments such as the “full capacity” of the facilities where the political party held a press conference began to emerge, something that the communicators could deny at a glance. Likewise, they point out that from Vox they ignore requests for interviews or to have access to information.
“Since 2019, Vox has systematically denied accreditation to the Prisa media, both EL PAÍS and Cadena SER, to prevent news coverage of their press conferences or party events at their headquarters or in rented premises, alleging a full capacity, which often showed very visible and wide gaps, or without responding to requests. The right to freedom of information is protected in article 20.1 of the Constitution and also in article 19.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Spain subscribes, and which regulates “the freedom to seek, receive and disseminate information and ideas of all kinds”, El País points out in its editorial.
In Spain, legislative elections will be held this Sunday, July 23. | Photo: Getty Images / Kutay Tanir
In tune with what happened, the Spanish media indicated that, despite the fact that this Sunday, July 23, the Iberian country will live a new electoral day in which the composition of Congress and the Senate will be defined, they have not received any response so that they can do the pertinent coverage from the electoral headquarters of the far-right party.
“Preventing a medium from providing its readers with relevant information for the citizenry —such as the public acts of a party financed 60% with public money and concurrent with the elections— is democratic obstructionism, it explicitly violates article 6 of the Constitution and leaves the electorate with a dead angle on what happens in the public acts that the Spanish ultra-right holds in its premises,” the newspaper adds in the editorial.
El País pointed out that Santiago Abascal himself, president of Vox since 2014, had indicated reasons other than those related to capacity for having vetoed the Grupo Prisa media. According to the newspaper, “the ultra leader may not answer a journalist’s questions”, but what he cannot do is deny media access to the party headquarters or places where he has public events, this, due to Abascal’s own non-conformity with an editorial published on November 6, 2019 in which, according to the ultra-right leader, it was indicated that “Vox must be subject to a sanitary cordon.”
“The consequence that the leader of Vox drew is that his party is authorized to react “in some way”, according to his words, but that way cannot be to veto the presence of journalists from the Prisa group at their headquarters, according to the JEC itself and the Supreme Court, “said the outlet.
The general secretary of Vox, Santiago Abascal, is one of those accused of promoting the veto of Grupo Prisa and El País. | Photo: Europa Press 2023
Elections in the middle of the hottest summer
The legislative elections in Spain on Sunday will take place during the summer holidays, which led to more than two million people voting by mail, a high number that fueled fears of manipulation, exploited by the right and the extreme right.
Some 2.6 million people requested to vote by mail, 6.9% of the total of 37.7 million voters, an unprecedented figure in this country where voting is not compulsory.
According to El País, Vox has been implementing the ban on Grupo Prisa journalists since 2019. | Photo: Europa Press 2023
Since the campaign began, the opposition has cast doubt on the ability of the postal service to meet the high demand, hinting that ballots could go uncounted.
“I ask the postmen of Spain to work to the maximum, morning, afternoon and night and, even if they do not have sufficient reinforcements, to know that they are guarding something that is sacred to the Spanish, which is their vote,” said the leader of the Popular Party (PP, conservatives), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the favorite in the polls last week.
The head of the far-right formation Vox, Santiago Abascal, said on Tuesday that he was “extraordinarily concerned”, since, in his opinion, the postal service has not had the necessary “means”. This is added to “the bad intention of calling elections in the vacation period of the Spaniards,” he added.
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