The Spanish government asked the UN for support on a Human Rights issue and the international body has responded. After analyzing the initiatives made by right-wing coalition governments - formed by the People's Party (PP) and Vox in 2023 - in several of Spain's autonomous communities to repeal their laws of historical memory and replace them with so-called "concordance” laws, the United Nations has urged Spain to “take the measures necessary to guarantee strict respect for international human rights standards.” The eight-page letter signed by three UN Human Rights rapporteurs warns that the “so-called 'concordance' laws could violate the obligation of the Spanish state to guarantee the preservation of the historical memory of certain violations of human rights”, because “they order the suppression of multiple entities, projects, websites and historical memory activities”, and thus “they may pose limits to access to truth about the fate or location of victims” and “hinder or suppress financial assistance to projects”. Overall, they consider that these legal changes are "revisionism" that could violate the rights of the victims and make the crimes of the Franco dictatorship invisible.
The United Nations report is signed by Fabian Salvioli, special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition; Aua Baldé, rapporteur for the Working Group on Forced Disappearances; and Morris Tidball-Binz, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. These international experts warn that the initiatives of the Spanish right could "make invisible" the "serious human rights violations committed during the Franco dictatorial regime". In addition to the UN, the Spanish government intends to take the right-wing "concordance" laws to the Constitutional Court and has also asked the European Parliament and the Council of Europe for support.
A "revisionism" that "avoids naming or condemning the Franco regime"
The text of the UN Human Rights experts argues that these PP and Vox "concordance" laws "avoid naming or condemning the Franco regime" and underlines that they contribute to reviving "revisionist or denialist" theories about the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent four-decade dictatorship. In particular, the United Nations rapporteurs warn of the law promoted by the right-wing coalition government in the Valencian Country, which, by lumping together the victims of Spain's 1930s Second Republic, ETA terrorism and Islamic terrorism, "distorts", they point out, the ultimate goal which should be to "respond to the needs and rights of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Franco regime and the Civil War". The United Nations is also critical of the laws that the PP and Vox have promoted in two other autonomous communities, Castilla y León and Aragón, for their suppression of historical memory initiatives.
Obliged to comply with human rights and memory agreements
Finally, the UN rapporteurs recall that all Spanish institutions and state powers, at whatever level, must commit themselves to protecting human rights and preserving the historical memory of serious violations of these, and add that if these obligations are breached, there is the risk of "compromising the responsibility" of Spain and the UN. In this respect, the report points out that Spain signed and must comply with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1977) and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2009).