A group of ranchers assaults the Lorca City Council and forces the suspension of a plenary session that was going to limit the farms

A group of ranchers has assaulted the Lorca City Council (96,000 inhabitants, Murcia) on Monday and have prevented the holding of the municipal plenary session, where a motion presented by the local government team was expected to be approved, which included a modification of the General Plan of Urban Planning (PGOU) to move pig farms away from the urban area of ​​the city. Some 30 farmers have overcome the municipal police barrier set up in front of the Local Development Center of the Murcian town and have violently broken into municipal facilities. The mayor of the city, Diego José Mateos (PSOE), has described the events as an “attack against democracy that is reminiscent of the assault on the Capitol [la sede parlamentaria de Estados Unidos] January,” according to informs The Truth of Murcia. The municipal building remains taken over by the police.

The events have occurred when a small group of ranchers broke away from the demonstration called in front of the Consistory by the Association of Livestock Entrepreneurs of the Region of Murcia (Acega), and which has had the participation of the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives from the Region of Murcia, the PP and Vox. Some 500 people protested against the approval of the modification of the urban plan that, according to the participants, would mean paralyzing the implementation of new feedlots for pigs or the expansion of existing ones.

A few minutes before the plenary session began, a group of ranchers confronted the police, went up the stairs and forced the doors of the building. Then he has reached the fourth floor of the building, shouting and threatening the government team and warning that they were going to burn the building, in a protest that has finally led to the suspension of the plenary session.

Municipal sources have assured that, before the assault, there have been moments of tension, which has forced the local and national police officers displaced in the area to intervene to contain and evict the protesters.

The seizure of the municipal center has led to the cancellation of the plenary session in which the modification was discussed, on the recommendation of the security forces, given the difficulties in guaranteeing security inside the building, according to municipal sources.

The climate of tension had begun to heat up early on Monday when several tractors have paralyzed the center of the town of Lorca. With this act they intended that the plenary session not debate the motion that affects the local livestock sector, as confirmed by the same sources to Europa Press.

The mayor of the town has condemned the assault, which, he said, “will go down in history as an attack against democracy (…) an attempt has been made to attack and coerce the free deliberation of the highest municipal representative body, which is the plenary session of the City Council. Mateos added: “They have invaded municipal property to try to attack and coerce the free deliberation and free vote of the highest municipal representative body.” For this reason, he has expressed his confidence that all the groups “condemn” what happened this morning “out of respect for the 25 councilors who are part of the corporation.” The Popular Party and Vox have supported in the last hours the protest of the ranchers, who have collapsed the traffic through the center of the city early in the morning In the demonstration have been, among others, the “popular” mayors of Puerto Lumbreras and Fuente Álamo, María Ángeles Tunisia and Juana María Martínez,

United Left sources have assured that several policemen have been injured in the attempt to contain the assailants who, they assure in a tweet, have acted “in the purest Trump style.”

For her part, María Marín, spokesperson for Podemos in the Murcia Assembly, has accused PP and Vox of being behind these violent acts: “PP and Vox feed hoaxes, feed violence and do not measure the consequences. Or maybe yes, and what they are looking for are violent acts such as the assault on the Lorca Town Hall.”