The delegate of the Government in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, has presided together with the Superior Chief of Police in the Valencian Community, Carlos Gajero, and the Chief General of the Sixth Zone of the Civil Guard, Arturo Prieto, among others, the minute of silence called at the headquarters of the Delegation of the Government in condemnation of the latest machista murder of Villena and in support of the relatives of the victim.
Gender violence, said Barnabas, “has become the most terrible terrorism that our society is experiencing that we demand from those who govern all the autonomous communities and municipalities, which it is essential to recognize in order to fight against it.” It is, he added, “a question of state and humanity.” The rulers, the delegate said, “cannot look the other way.” Therefore, the Government works “through all the mechanisms in a transversal way to end this scourge and we will demand that the autonomous communities collaborate” and that “do not waste time in superfluous speeches, which only seek to divert attention on a problem that affects thousands of women”. The delegate thanked the work of the State Security Forces and Corps that “protect the more than 14,000 women who are in the VioGen system in the Valencian Community”. “As long as we waste time looking for linguistic subterfuges that only trivialize a cruel and real problem, we will not move forward and we will have failed,” he said. However, “the government will continue to be responsible and inflexible in this relentless struggle that we must all wage against gender violence”
With the woman murdered in Villena there are 21 victims of gender-based violence in Spain so far this year, the third in the Valencian Community.
The minutes of silence were also held in the subdelegations of Valencia, Alicante and Castellón.