The Government delegate in Navarra, Alicia Echeverría, expressed this Friday her "absolute condemnation" of the incidents that occurred on Thursday in Pamplona during the protests against a call from activist Vito Quiles. She emphasized that the authors of these disturbances "are not antifascist movements" because "fascism is not fought with more violence or more hatred, fascism is fought with more democracy."
In statements to the media, Echeverría explained that these violent episodes have caused "a concentration of hundreds of absolutely peaceful people against the visit of Vito Quiles and everything he represents to be sidelined and distorted."
According to her, "what Vito Quiles represents is rejected by the majority of Navarra society, peacefully. He is a person who comes to sow hatred, to provoke, who lives off harassment and bullying of people, and the majority of Navarrese defend our positions and our ideology without violence and without harassment."
Subsequently, the delegate emphasized that "neither Vito Quiles nor the people who protagonized these violent incidents yesterday represent us Navarrese." In her opinion, "Navarra and Pamplona have to be and are an example of coexistence among different people."
Echeverría pointed out that she still does not have concrete data on participation in the protests against Vito Quiles that ended up leading to incidents, but she stressed that "we clearly saw that the people who went to hear the hate speeches that Vito Quiles was going to convey were the fewest, and I think that is what should matter to us."
Likewise, she detailed that "the police operation first tried to guarantee a fundamental right of assembly for all parties, both for those who were in the Plaza del Castillo and for those who were in Yamaguchi, as well as for those who were where they should not be and had not communicated where they were going to be; and on the other hand, the operation aimed to try to reverse that disturbance of public order." She insisted that "we must not deviate from what is important, and what is important at this moment is that we cannot allow and must condemn both the violent acts carried out yesterday under the pretext of Vito Quiles' visit and the hate speeches, harassment, and lies of this man."
Asked about the police action during the riots, in which stones and bottles were thrown, containers were overturned, and a person was injured in the head during the charges, the delegate reiterated that "the police device had two objectives, which were to guarantee the right to assembly, which is a fundamental right, and to restore public order." She has asked "let's not divert the focus from what is important. The important thing is that there have been violent acts, very violent, and that this gentleman comes to what he comes for, which is to sow hatred, and that we must stand firm against both attitudes. These do not represent, none, the Navarre society nor much less Pamplona."
Finally, when questioned about whether she supports the police intervention, Echeverría has reaffirmed her position: "I believe there is no doubt about what the delegation thinks, let's focus on what is important."