Eduardo Fernández Rubiño (Madrid, 32 years old) has been a councilor for Más Madrid in the capital's City Council since May. An LGTBI activist, he entered politics in 2015, where he was a deputy in the regional Assembly until the last municipal and regional elections this year. On Friday, after six in the afternoon, during the monthly plenary session of the Cibeles palace, he suffered an attack by the Vox spokesperson in Madrid and also a deputy in Congress, Javier Ortega-Smith. The councilor finished his speech on the bench, walked towards Rubiño, confronted him, hit the table of the Más Madrid bench and a bottle of water was thrown out. PSOE, Más Madrid and PP have asked the Vox councilor to leave the minutes. He, however, refuses.
Ask. Have any of the five Vox councilors contacted you during these hours?
Answer. No. All of Vox supports this violent attitude because it is in their DNA. Vox systematically produces institutional violence. They target LGTBI people, migrants, the vulnerable. They stir up that hatred and say that homosexuals are growing at an alarming rate. This is consistent with the dotted line of what Vox represents in Spain, an anti-democratic force that corrodes our institutions. I know what I have in front of me and what we Spaniards stopped in the July elections. Vox is a party that has dedicated itself to flooding institutions with hate. He is the only partner of the PP and aspired to be in the Government. Ortega Smith wanted to be the Minister of the Interior. I will return to the Cibeles plenary session with all the determination.
Q. The plenary cameras recorded the moment of the attack. However, you exchanged a few words previously.
R. It all started with the speech of PSOE councilor Adriana Moscoso, who told how she had lived her childhood when her father was threatened by ETA. Given this, Smith said that Moscoso suffered from Stockholm syndrome. I was outraged and as he passed in front of me I said “how disgusting”, in reference to those words of a victim of terrorism. I couldn't imagine that reaction, out of character, of her telling me: “What are you saying, what are you saying?” She got very close physically. He slammed his hand on my seat and a water bottle went flying. There, she told me: “Now, cry.” These words are not a coincidence. He tells them to me because he thinks I'm less of a man than him. These words remind me of what bullies say to the fag in the class at school. This corresponds to a model of fragile and self-conscious masculinity. What Vox represents. They want to impose that sexist and outdated model on the rest.
Q. What was your relationship with Smith like in these months?
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R. Very cordial. We have agreed at the spokesperson meetings and at many institutional events. I have been very hard on him in these plenary sessions because, in my opinion, his way of doing politics should have no place in the institutions. He probably had a hankering for me. But in my political period I have never experienced a situation like this. He has lost his temper and behaved like a nightclub thug at six in the morning in front of all the cameras. If he does this in front of everyone, what would he have done if he didn't have the public eye on him?
Q. Smith wrote a text on his X profile, formerly Twitter, after eight in the afternoon. In it you claim that you “mocked” the victims of terrorism.
R. It is absolutely false. Lie. The permanent use they make of the victims of terrorism for political purposes is a shame. How is it possible for a public representative to say that an ETA victim has Stockholm syndrome?
Q. Hours later, different members and former members of Vox have come out to defend Smith. Former deputy Víctor Sánchez del Real has written in Smith has liked this comment.
R. (Silence) It qualifies itself.
Q. At the end of the plenary session, Smith appeared before the press and said: “I am not going to leave my council record, nor am I going to stop denouncing that left that is thrown into the mountains and that cowed right that does not know how to get on its knees. So I wish you all a Merry Christmas and may the victim recover from his serious injuries.”
R. It is an example of the absolute political degradation into which they try to convert the institutions. They seek to generate a quagmire through which politics is unworkable. This should make us reflect on how important it has been that Vox did not enter the Government of Spain. Alberto Núñez Feijóo could have made Ortega Smith a minister. We must close the door to people who want a Spain from 50 years ago.
Q. The 12 councilors from his party and the 11 from the PSOE left the plenary session immediately. The councilors of the PP and Vox remained in their seats. Has anyone from the PP contacted you?
R. Yes, Almeida and some councilors. All with condemning and supportive words. I appreciate it, but the problem is that Vox is its main partner in all of Spain. Can the PP be comfortable with a partner like that?
Q. Also striking was the attitude of the president of the Plenary Session of the City Council, Borja Fanjul, of the PP, who denied his intervention after the attack and even demanded an apology from him.
R. Well, the thing is… we have already registered the resignation of the president of the Plenary. He behaved in an equidistant manner. He even went so far as to give me permission to apologize to Smith, just short of insinuating that I was provoking and that this provoked Smith's attitude. This demonstrates the PP's double standards. There was a precedent in the plenary session, where a PSOE councilor slapped the mayor in the face and we all asked him to resign. The president of the Plenary Session acted in a devastating manner that day. The contrast with yesterday's embarrassing performance with me does not get a pass. He must resign.
Q. Has Fanjul, the president, called you?
R. No. He has not called me or given me an explanation.
Q. Do you think Ortega Smith is going to resign?
R. Most likely not. Vox is in a logic in which it comes to believe that this compensates it electorally. This is what should alert us. Fortunately, they have lost 19 seats, but they are still there. They support this. This is in their DNA. They only inoculate hatred in the institutions.
Q. Can Ortega's attitude be reflected in the street?
R. Everything Vox does in institutions legitimizes violence in the streets. When they point out LGTBI people from the stands, they put them in the target. The bullies who already existed, but who were rejected by society, now feel legitimized to act. Vox plays with fire. It adds fuel to what happens later when we don't have cameras in front of us.
Q. Have you already thought about what you are going to say to Ortega in the next plenary session?
R. (Silence) It's not going to intimidate me. I'm going to continue as normal. We are going to ask for his disapproval and resignation. If he thinks he's going to make me lower my head, he doesn't know me and he's wrong. Not something else, but I have been supporting Vox in the institutions for many years and a schoolyard bully has not yet been born big enough to prevent me from continuing to defend the things in which I believe, which is a better country free of that Spain in black and white to which they want to return us.
Q. On September 28, as I said, there was another attack in the plenary session, in this case by a socialist councilor against Mayor Almeida. How did we get here?
R. I entered politics in 2015 and the degradation in these years has been incredible. The style of [la presidenta de la Comunidad de Madrid, Isabel Díaz] Ayuso and the representatives of Vox, which consists of permanently making bullying to adversaries and generate insults and accusations, has turned politics into a quagmire. The Madrid Assembly is embarrassing. The City Council, unfortunately, is going down the same path. Almeida is permanently dedicated to riding shows in plenary sessions. This generates a climate that is increasing…
Q. And how do you combat a climate like this?
R. With firmness and determination. Being firm and forceful in a Parliament is not a problem. The problem is when signs are generated and all the lines are crossed. There is talk about where the Minister of Health, Mónica García, lives, as Ayuso has done. She looks for a way to destroy the one in front of you. We must combat this by claiming that not all politicians are the same. You cannot fall into anti-politics. This is not a fan where all politicians behave the same way.
Q. This Friday, Isabel Díaz Ayuso cut regional laws trans and LGTBI, which had been approved during the presidency of Cristina Cifuentes (PP). Now, a 15-year-old trans minor in Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha) will not necessarily need to go through a psychologist before and during their hormone treatment process; but a trans minor in the Community of Madrid does.
R. We have written a black page in the history of Madrid. Madrid has become the first place in the history of Spanish democracy where the LGTBI community regresses in rights and freedoms. It should make us reflect. Just as steps are taken forward, steps are taken backwards. The PP released this in 2016. Now, Ayuso no longer needs Vox, but he has decided to release this out of pure conviction. What happened? That the PP has been colonized by the Vox program.
Q. In 2022, more than 170 were produced in the Community of Madrid homophobic attacks which were carried out mainly by young men under 30 years of age who did not actively belong to any violent group. This is reflected in the last Observatory against LGTBIphobia launched by the Arcópoli association with data from last year.
R. Being rigorous, it is very difficult to know the exact figures because the PP has been responsible for removing funding from this independent observatory. But there are other reports, such as that of the Ministry of the Interior, which includes this increase and this rise that coincides with the entry into politics of Vox, which points to LGTBI people and any vulnerable group that does not agree with its idea of a uniform and closed Spain. that they propose. That thugs in jackets and ties spread hate speech from a platform has consequences in the streets.
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