The PSOE proposes in Congress the recognition of LGTBI people who were victims of repression during the Franco regime

It also promotes two initiatives so that the Royal Post Office and the south wall of the La Almudena Cemetery are places of democratic memory.

MADRID, 24 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The PSOE has presented in the Congress of Deputies a battery of non-law proposals to promote the recognition and tribute to people from the LGTBI community who were victims of repression during the war and the Franco dictatorship, as well as to declare them places of memory democratic the old Royal Post Office and the south wall of the Almudena Cemetery.

The socialist parliamentary group has argued in the document registered this week that the history of the LGTBI collective is "a history based on discrimination" and has stressed that during the Franco dictatorship LGTBI people became "discriminated against and persecuted by the State, as well as as excluded by society".

In this sense, the PSOE has cited that in 1954 the Franco government modified the 'Law on Vagrants and Criminals' to include LGTBI people as people "potentially criminals of sexual crimes" and to whom certain security measures could be applied.

Based on this regulation, the socialist group has cited studies that indicate that more than 5,000 people were convicted under the Franco regime for their sexual orientation or identity or gender expression, although "it is undoubtedly that the number could be higher given the social stigma that existed at that time.

The socialist group has also registered separate non-law proposals in the Lower House to declare the former Real Casa de Correos, located in Puerta del Sol, and the southern wall of Madrid's Almudena Cemetery as places of democratic memory.

Regarding the first place, which currently houses the presidency of the autonomous government of the Community of Madrid, the PSOE has indicated in its explanatory statement that during the years of the Franco dictatorship it was the headquarters of the General Directorate of Security (DGS), " where numerous people were illegally detained, mistreated and tortured.

"In its basements, institutionalized violence was carried out on thousands of people who were illegally detained, mistreated and tortured for being political and moral dissidents of the Dictatorship," highlighted the socialist group, which recalled specific cases such as torture until the death in 1953 of the UGT and PSOE activist, Tomás Centeno Sierra, and the confinement and torture in 1963 of the leader of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Julián Grimau, who was sentenced to death and shot by the dictatorship.

Regarding the south wall of the Almudena Cemetery, the socialist group's writing has indicated that it was a "scene of the brutal repression of Franco's regime, where nearly 3,000 people were shot" and whose bullet impacts "are still present." in the wall.

The cemetery became one of the scenes of the "brutal repression" exercised by the Franco dictatorship during the post-war period; Specifically, the PSOE has pointed out, during the period between May 1939 and February 1944, 2,937 people were shot (among them, 80 women) on the south wall of the necropolis.

Likewise, the letter has charged against the municipal executive of the popular Martínez-Almeida for "suppressing the plaques with the names of the 2,937 people who were shot during the period described above, as well as the verses of the poet Miguel Hernández", from the memorial that was installed during the government of Manuel Carmena (2015-2019).