Main associations will issue a joint manifesto and organize street marches in the coming days
Spain’s main feminist groups are mobilising against the country’s far-right party Vox, which is threatening to withhold support for a new government in Andalusia unless its new leaders pledge to repeal existing gender violence policies.
Feminismo, ni un paso atrás (or, Feminism, not a single step back) is the slogan of a movement that kicked off activities on January 9 with the reading of a manifesto, the Cadena SER radio network reported. Several feminist associations are also planning a march for February 15.
As reported by Spain’s daily El País, the Vox leader in Andalusia calls himself “a victim of gender-based Jihadism”.
Feminist groups are concerned about the rise of Vox, which secured 12 seats at the Andalusian regional elections on December 2. The far-right group holds the key to a centre-right government formed by the Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos, who wanted to end 36 years of rule by the Socialist Party (PSOE). Although Vox has not been asked to join the alliance, the latter needed Vox’s votes to appoint its candidate to the premiership, Juan Manuel Moreno of the PP. The far-right party has agreed to support the coalition.
Vox is now demanding moves against the gender violence law, which it views as biased.
According to El País , feminist groups are afraid that centre-right parties will make concessions to Vox, which is also hoping for success at upcoming local and regional elections in Spain later this year.
Francisco Serrano, Vox’s leader in Andalusia, has been a vocal opponent of what he terms “radical feminism,” and says that he himself is “a victim of gender-based Jihadism.” At other times he has described himself as “a defender of the Spanish nation, of family values, of equal rights, and pro-life.”
“Women must be protected from all forms of violence, but from a position of presumed innocence, not from a deterministic view that women are always the victims, because what you are applying in that case is a psychological approach, not a legal one,” he told EL PAÍS in early December.
