The PSOE denounces the beating of Sánchez's doll to the Prosecutor's Office and points to Vox

This Friday, the PSOE filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office for what happened on New Year's Eve in front of the party headquarters, on Ferraz Street, where a group of people beat up a Pedro Sánchez doll. The formation asks the public ministry to initiate an investigation to elucidate who was behind this protest, which it considers as the “colophon” of a campaign “with violent overtones” to place the socialists “in the target.” In its writing of more than 50 pages, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the political force directly points to Vox as the “common link” of all the “coordinated actions” in recent months and lists a battery of possible crimes that would fit , according to their criteria, with the beating of the piñata with the image of the President of the Government: threats, insults, hate crime, public disorders, illegal demonstration or serious insults against the Head of the Executive.

The complaint, signed by Alberto Cachinero (director of the federal legal office of the PSOE), describes in profuse detail the beating of the doll and concludes that “there appears to be a relationship” between the organizations that promoted the year-end call and the far-right of Vox. The socialists even go further and assure that Santiago Abascal's party would be behind the “harassment” campaign deployed in recent months in the streets against the main government party, which has translated into daily mobilizations in front of its headquarters ( some of which ended with confrontations with the police and charges). “All these actions that led to the events of December 31—coordinated, organized over time and constant—seem to have a common link through the Vox political formation,” insists the PSOE in the letter addressed to the Prosecutor's Office, where urges us to investigate these “connections.”

Despite the doubts of many jurists about the possibility that the beating of Sánchez's doll could be prosecuted by criminal means, the socialists have decided to go to the public ministry. “The expressions used and actions carried out represent an illegitimate attack on the honor of the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez, president of the Government and general secretary of the [partido]. Therefore, although freedom of expression has a very broad scope of action, covering even the most annoying, hurtful or unpleasant criticism, in its communication or externalization it is not possible to exceed the intended critical intention, giving it an insulting, denigrating or disproportionate tone ( in this case, absolutely disproportionate and violent),” the complaint states.

The letter addressed to the Prosecutor's Office adds: “The facts that we denounce include repeated insulting attitudes towards the PSOE and its general secretary, but they go one step further, using language absolutely taken from past times, (“red shit”, “happy 1936 “) at the doors of our headquarters, which represent a public signaling of a group for reasons of an ideological nature; placing it, the PSOE it represents and its members and affiliates, at the center of attacks resulting from that accusation.” “These facts obviously go beyond political criticism to give rise to placing the PSOE, and particularly Pedro Sánchez, in the target of an exaltation of conduct with violent overtones, hatred, hostility, and discrimination that we are living in these moments, which incite non-legitimate attitudes, such as an 'assassination' or a 'lynching', and with this, putting at risk, even abstractly, their own safety and personal integrity and that of those who represent the PSOE or “They identify with socialist ideology,” the complaint adds.

Insults and pre-constitutional symbols

A part of the complaint, which includes photographs of the protest with Ferraz on New Year's Day, focuses on describing what happened that night, between 10:00 p.m. on December 31 and 1:00 a.m. on January 1. “The rally brought together about 300 people, according to the Government delegation, who had met at the request of the organizers, according to whom they had acquired jars of grapes, a public address system, and had presenters and DJs for the event,” explains the letter from the PSOE. They launched “chant against the Government and its president, and the PSOE”: “Accompanied by insults, carrying banners with disqualifying slogans and some of them displayed with pre-constitutional flags.” “With joy and expectation, as part of the event, they proceeded to hang a doll that […] “It reproduces a person, a man, with an elongated nose, a black suit, a red tie, and a red bracelet on the left arm, on which the initials PSOE appear.” Who was identified as the head of the Executive.

The doll was beaten for a long time, while shouts and slogans such as: “1, 2, 3, hanging by the feet” were raised; “psychopath”; “motherfucker”; “fucking red is anyone who doesn't vote”; “revolution, Spain, traitor”, “we must burn him, we must burn Ferraz”; “sons of bitches, Spain has woken up”; “Sánchez to prison, summary trial of the Government.” Once the piñata was destroyed, the complaint continues, the attendees picked up the remains from the ground while saying “they are Sánchez's entrails” and shouting “take him to Morocco.”

The PSOE also reproduces part of an interview with two people, published on the website The Objective, whom he identifies as presenters of the event broadcast on YouTube, María Durán and Isaac Parejo. “What is going to be Isaac and María's wish for 2024?” asks the interviewer. “Ugh. “They put me in jail,” Parejo answers. And Durán adds: “No, no, you cannot ask for assassinations in videos. No, no, not Isacc.”

Abascal's words

The PSOE relates what happened to the words spoken days before by the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, who in an interview in Argentina said: “There will be a given moment when the people will want to hang him by his feet,” in reference to Pedro Sánchez. . “From the seriousness of the metaphor we have moved on to the seriousness of simulation of the facts,” the socialists state in their complaint to the Prosecutor's Office, where they cite a whole series of organizations and people who have promoted and participated in the successive protests of Ferraz, who are linked to the far-right formation: such as Revuelta, Noviembre Nacional, Plataforma 711 or Asoma (with the latter the person who went to testify before the National Police is identified).

In this sense, the socialists ask that their links be investigated and put on the table the possibility that Vox is using them to “obtain economic funds” to pay for their political actions “through parallel structures”: “Irregularly, through opaque donations and contributions or from prohibited legal entities.” In fact, the PSOE recalls that the organizers of the New Year's Eve protest raised money through the internet to organize that mobilization. “The campaign, which began on December 4, raised 20,078 euros [según la plataforma utilizada para ello]. The contributions have amounted to a total of 1,054 donations, ranging from 5 to 1,000 euros, among which is someone who claims to be Hermann Tertsch, a Vox MEP,” states the socialists' complaint.

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