Orihuela disconnects a concert by El Niño de Elche from the celebration of World Gypsy People's Day

El Niño de Elche and the gypsy people do not get along. The Orihuela City Council had announced a program on the occasion of World Gypsy People's Day where the famous singer's concert was sold as the main attraction. Only two days later, the City Council had to disassociate this event from the agenda scheduled for April 6.

In a first press release released last Tuesday, the City Council reported on all the scheduled events and highlighted in the headline the attendance of Francisco Contreras Molina. In that same statement, he was identified as “a key figure in contemporary flamenco” and his status as a collaborator with renowned artists such as C Tangana, Los Planetas or Israel Galván was valued. There was also a lengthy description of his discography, highlighting among others his album 'Yes a Miguel Hernández' (2013) or 'Voces del Extremo', best album of the year 2015 for the Spanish press.

The announcement by the Department of Social Welfare sparked a multitude of negative comments on the social network 'X' (formerly Twitter), where people who called themselves activists of the gypsy people censored the choice of Niño de Elche for considering him “anti-gypsy” and, Specifically, some shared a tweet of his where the artist said the following: «I have read a campaign that says… we intend to gypsy the world. Oh really? Gypsies of the world, worry about being gypsies and not about gypsyizing.

Finally this Thursday the City Council got off the wagon with a new press release in which the Social Welfare area limited the planned events to those agreed with the associations. «The Department of Social Welfare, headed by Councilor Agustina Rodríguez, has reported that, after the contact maintained in recent days with the representatives of the Plataforma Unión Gitana association, José Antonio Castro and Julia Contreras, it has been agreed that the events planned for commemorate the International Day of the Gypsy People will focus solely on the actions planned for April 6 organized jointly between said association and the Department. In this way, possible confusion is avoided or the objective of the events planned to commemorate World Gypsy People's Day is distorted, so any other event remains unrelated to this celebration.

After this decision, the agenda is therefore reduced to the following events at the María Moliner Library. The event, on the 6th, will consist of thanking participants and collaborators followed by a presentation by gypsy leaders, including the pianist Matías Contreras and the painter Joaquín Fernández. There will also be a presentation by Manuel Martínez, an expert historian of the gypsy people. The celebration will end with the reading of a manifesto at 7:30 p.m. and the performance of a gypsy melody on the piano.

Once the controversy aroused in networks with El Niño de Elche is closed, the Department of Social Welfare emphasizes that the objective of this anniversary on Saturday of next week “is essentially that of institutional support for the Gypsy people on their international day in which they claim their rights, their value and contribution to culture and history is recognized, but above all we seek to end stigmatization and stigmatization.