The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, presided today, in San Martín del Rey Aurelio (Asturias), together with the President of the Principality, Adrián Barbón, the act of handing over 70 declarations of recognition and reparation to workers victims of the War and the dictatorship.

Torres has highlighted that, with this tribute, a debt is paid to the workers, who were, for many years, “the great forgotten. Their stories were silenced and hidden, even within their own homes, gripped by fear.”

The minister recalled that the people recognized today “helped to build a republican Spain, advanced for their time; too much, perhaps, for the rebels, who saw their privileges and those of those who supported them threatened.”

Among the victims who have received their statement on this occasion are masons, nurses, barbers, day labourers or shopkeepers, but, above all, miners. In this group, Ángel Víctor Torres wanted to stop. “They shook the fierce structure of Franco’s regime, with its strikes and demonstrations, an example and inspiration for all those people and organizations that stood up to totalitarianism,” said the minister, who has been accompanied by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez; the delegate of the Government in Asturias, Adriana Lastra; the general director of Attention to Victims, Zoraida Hijosa; the mayor, José Ramón Martín; among other authorities; in addition to José Ramón Fernández, president of the Memorialist Association of Asturias.

Torres wanted to conclude by thanking the victims and their families for their sacrifice, for having contributed to building “the country we are now”, and for putting “the seeds of our democracy”. In addition, he has encouraged us not to falter in the defense of freedoms, in the face of the advance of political positions “nostalgic of authoritarianism”.