The Government of Spain has today declared the former Penitentiary Agricultural Colony of Tefía, in Fuerteventura, as the first Place of Democratic Memory of our country dedicated to the LGTBI+ community.

This space, which, from today, is already the first Place of Memory of the Canary Islands, housed a forced labor camp for homosexuals and transsexuals during the dictatorship (between 1954 and 1966), through which dozens of inmates passed, who survived in subhuman conditions, hunger, beatings and humiliations.

“Tefía was the symbol of the shame of a fascist regime, rotten with heteropatriarchal white supremacism, in a suffocating Spain where freedom could not break out”, said the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, during the event held today in Tefía, in which he has delivered ten declarations of Recognition and Reparation to victims who passed through this center, as well as to people and groups that have been understood in the struggle of the LGTBI+ movement.

Torres, who has been accompanied by the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo; the president of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, Lola García; the delegate of the Government in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana; and the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez, said that the Franco regime “did not know what it was doing by trying to sow in the Canary Islands the seed of hatred for diversity.”

The minister recalled that the LGBTI+ community of the islands has historically been among the most deeply rooted in the country. “Our Trans Law was approved unanimously by all the political forces represented in the Autonomous Parliament, of all,” said Torres, who warned that, at that time, there was still no representation of the far-right in the Canarian Parliament.

During his speech, Ángel Víctor Torres, highlighted the commitment of the people honored today. “Their stories, their lives, are our fuel, lives dedicated to expanding rights, exemplary and unrepeatable lives, which also helped us recover the democracy that robbed us overnight, in blood and fire,” he said.

In addition, he has traveled the way to the declaration of this “space for infamy” as a Place of Memory. The minister explained that “as soon as they took office”, it was clear that the Canary Islands had to have their Places of Memory and that their victims were recognized, because, “although there was no war front in the Islands, there were thousands of people detained, disappeared or killed”.

After Tefía, the next Place of Memory of the Canary Islands, with a file already opened, will be the Masonic Temple of Tenerife, which will be added to the 37 that have already been declared or opened throughout the Spanish territory.

The minister has appealed to defend the democracy of those who want to undermine it, above all, to “tell young people what happened.” Torres has acknowledged that it is “evidence” that “involutionist postulates are taking hold” and “run like gunpowder” on social networks. “We cannot allow it to happen again; being born free is no guarantee of dying free,” he said.

The event was presented by journalists Lluis Guilera and Fátima Hernández and featured a panel discussion, moderated by Celeste González and composed by Víctor Ramírez (historian and LGTBI+ activist), Gracia Trujillo (LGTBI+ activist and professor at the Complutense University) and Miguel A. Fernández (LGTBI+ activist of the Pedro Zerolo Foundation). The event also featured the musical performance of Julia Rodríguez and Passion Vega.