Tefía, Fuerteventura
Fernando Martínez, accompanied by the President of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, Lola García, the Councilor for Social Action, Diversity, LGTBIQ+, Víctor Alonso, the Councilor for Education and Youth, Adargoma Hernández, the Councilor for Security and Emergencies and senator for Fuerteventura, Paloma Hernández, the representatives of ALTIHAY, the Councilor for Equality of the City of Puerto del Rosario, Tacoremi Gutiérrez, and the Councilor for Youth, Enrique Soler, has visited the youth facilities.
The project proposes to promote the recognition of the victims who remained in the Agricultural and Penitentiary Colony of Tefía, with an interpretation center that values the principles of truth, justice, reparation and guarantee of non-repetition as a duty of memory, dignifying the memory of the victims in Fuerteventura and the Canary Islands.
At the beginning of 1954, the Franco authorities turned the former majorero airfield into a place of imprisonment and punishment for social prisoners and homosexuals, where they were also subjected to forced labor, under the protection of the Law of Vagos and Maleantes with which he equated the group of homosexuals "with "rufianes, pimps and professional beggars". The centre, now converted into a youth hostel, remained open until 1966. Today it is a symbol of the LGTBIQ+ collective.
For Fernando Martínez "Tefia must become a center of interpretation of reference of the memory of the LGTBI+ community of the Canary Islands and the whole of Spain. The visibility of the repression and forced labour that took place there must serve as a permanent reflection so that they never happen again."
The Democratic Memory Act contemplates this group as victims and it is only right to make its memory known.
The project proposes the creation of a museum space, an archive open to scholars and a conference and exhibition hall.
The Secretary of State has pledged, on behalf of the Government of Spain, to collaborate with the Cabildo of Fuerteventura in turning Tefía into a center of interpretation of the memory of the LGTBI+ collective.