The journalist who advocated blowing up the basilica and abbey situated on the grounds of the Valley of the Fallen memorial complex northwest of Madrid has been charged by the Vox political party in Spain. The largest cross in the entire globe is located at this facility.
Because of his encouragement to use dynamite to blow up the abbey in the Valley of the Fallen during a radio programme, Spanish journalist Héctor de Miguel from Cadena SER, a PRISA Group radio station, was named in a legal complaint for a hate crime and for offending religious sentiments, both of which are prohibited by Articles 524-526 of the nation’s penal code.
“The Valley of the Fallen is an (obscenity),” the journalist said during his rant before he proposed: “Why don’t we go in there with dynamite and blow it all up? If it could be on a Sunday, so much the better.”
The deputy secretary of legal action for Vox, Marta Castro, said that regardless of his political intentions, the journalist’s statements “attack and harm the religious sentiments of many citizens.”
Aimar Bretos, the director of the Hora 25 programme, and Ignacio Soto Pérez, the general director of Cadena SER, were also accused in the case. Castro emphasised that individuals in control of the media outlet must take responsibility for their acts as specified in Article 28 of the penal code because they are regarded collaborators in the crime.
The Vox party also called attention to the journalist’s choice of the specific phrases “to blow up” with dynamite, which they perceived as having a “violent” intent.
The journalist claimed that the best moment to blow up the abbey would be on a Sunday, the day when many devout attend Mass at the basilica, “without caring about the lives of the citizens going to the church” to practise their religious faith, according to Vox.
The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers declared that it had also filed a lawsuit against Héctor de Miguel for harassment as well as a hate crime and insulting religious sensibilities.
In its complaint, the association said that the radio host had accused it of “violent blackmail” because it had organised a petition drive to end the programme.
The association also charged that the radio host compared it “to a terrorist or paramilitary gang” when he demanded on air “the dissolution and immediate surrender of weapons, as well as asking the victims for forgiveness.”
The journalist’s tirade led to more than 800 phone calls in three days to the association’s offices, which “has affected the daily functioning of the organization,” the attorneys charged.
In order to pay tribute to those who lost their lives on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco ordered the creation of the Valley of the Fallen, a colossal complex near Madrid that includes an abbey and basilica. The bodies of more than 30,000 victims of the war are buried in the complex.
The Nationalist and Republican factions fought one another in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 until 1939. Republican soldiers killed tens of thousands of religious and lay people during the conflict; of them, 11 have been canonised and more than 2,000 have been beatified.