• Català
  • Castellano
  • English
Areas General Services Presidency Certificates delivered to families of 18 victims of Franco regime in the Balearic Islands

Certificates delivered to families of 18 victims of Franco regime in the Balearic Islands

foto 2022 memoria dem COn Tuesday, Ana Juan, President of the Consell de Formentera, and Jesús Jurado, Balearic Secretary of Productive Sectors and Democratic Memory, presided over the island's first delivery of certificates to victims of the Franco regime. The ceremony served as a tribute and handed institutional recognition to victims of Franco's repression killed in the Balearic Islands, as well as to their families.

Various authorities, joined for the occasion by representatives of the memorial movement, presented the certificates to relatives of the following eighteen individuals: Antoni "Pere" Mayans Mayans; Antoni Planells Tur; Antoni Tur Marí; Francesc "Xico Mateu" Verdera Castelló; Jaume Escandell Costa; Jaume "d'en Morna" Ferrer Ferrer; Jaume "Mariano d'en Corda" Serra Juan; Joan Tur Mayans; Josep "Bosc" Escandell Mayans; Josep "de Baix" Ribas Marí; Josep "Blaiet" Riera; Josep Suñer; Josep "d'en Pep de na Damiana" Tur Planells; Mariano "Cuevas" Torres Torres; Marià "de s'hereu" Castelló Castelló; Vicent "Fumeral" Cardona Colomar; Vicent Guasch; and Vicent "de Baix" Ribas Marí.

President Juan pointed out that the Consell de Formentera asked the Balearic administration to make this delivery in an intimate ceremony for families who were unable to travel to Palma in October to collect the certificate. She stressed that "with acts like this we are closing wounds, but we still have a long way to go, so we mustn't stop; we must continue this work. Society owes a debt to these people and their families". Juan also praised "the enormous efforts of associations and researchers to make events like the ones today and tomorrow, possible", and described policies of democratic memory as "a priority in progressive administrations".

The ceremony was led by Marc Andreu Herrera, Balearic Director General of Democratic Memory, and was attended by Raquel Guasch, Councillor of Heritage, and Artur Parrón, Vice President of the Eivissa-Formentera Forum for Memory and member of the Graves and the Disappeared Commission. Ximo Estal, flute teacher and assistant head of studies at the Conservatory of Music and Dance of Eivissa and Formentera, performed "Trobarem a faltar el teu somriure" during the ceremony.

"The primary objective of acts like this is to keep memory alive and vindicate the democratic values of the people of Formentera who, from the coup d'état of 1936 until the start of La Transición, fought and opposed Francoism. These are people who risked and sometimes lost their lives defending the democratic legality of the Republic, organising resistance to the regime, fighting for the return of freedoms," said Secretary Jurado.

The certificates are official documents signed by the highest authorities of the Govern de les Illes Balears –President Francina Armengol and Vice President Juan Pedro Yllanes– that the Balearic Secretariat of Productive Sectors and Democratic Memory delivers to the families of all those victims of Francoist repression who request them. They serve to recognise victims of the Franco regime as victims of human rights violations and highlight the serious injustices suffered by victims' relatives.

In January 2021 the Balearic government delivered the first such certificate to the family of Juana Baño, a union and political activist whose remains were identified in 2018 by a team of researchers from the Aranzadi Science Society during exhumation of the mass grave in Calvià (Mallorca).

Since then, the Govern has issued 150 certificates, in addition to the 18 certificates delivered at the event held this Tuesday on Formentera.

30 March 2022
Communications Office
Consell de Formentera

Presidency

Press Office

971 32 10 87 - Ext: 3181
premsa@conselldeformentera.cat

twitter

 

facebook

horaris_eng_baix_1

boto YOUTUBE