2 EWN
www.euroweeklynews.com
20 - 26 September 2018
NEWS EXTRA Tough talking EU BREXIT negotiator Michel Barnier has indicated an intention to support Spain in any future sovereignty dispute with the UK over the island of Gibraltar, following a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Madrid.
Left vacant THE Spanish government is planning ‘coercive measures’ against the owners of empty properties by drafting new housing laws in a bid to ‘mobilise’ and free up some of the estimated 3.4 million empty homes in Spain.
Heart attack A PASSENGER travelling on an Alsa bus had to stop the vehicle when the driver lost control after suffering a suspected heart attack, at around 5pm on Tuesday, in El Berron in Siero.
ONE woman is raped somewhere in Spain every six hours on average, according to a report from the country’s Interior Ministry. There were a total of 788 rapes in Spain from January to June this year. The Interior Ministry’s report showed the rate was a 28.5 per cent increase on levels seen at the same time last year. The total number of complaints of sexual assaults more broadly stood at 5,731 for the first half of this year. The same figure for January to June last year was 5,083, an increase of almost 13 per cent. Yolanda Besteiro, Chairperson of the Federation of the Progressive Women of Spain, said Spanish society often blamed women for attacks rather than perpetrators. “According to our culture if an attack occurs it is because the woman has not known how to defend herself, or has dressed in a certain way or gotten into the wrong area,” Besteiro said. “Despite the increase in the number of complaints
Rape data Attack ‘every six hours’ we barely know the tip of the iceberg of the phenomenon of sexual assaults as only around 30 per cent of violations are reported,” she added. Government statistics have also shown that a total of 950 women have been
killed in gender violence-related incidents since records began in 2003. A total of 26 have died this year, the latest of which was in A Coruña. Carmen Calvo, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister and Equality Minister, said she
condemned the A Coruña killing and all those that had taken place in Spain. “Still some question the urgency of the State Pact against Gender Violence. Do not make politics out of tragedies,” Calvo said. Calvo’s comments are
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partly in reference to criticism from the leader of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) Pablo Casado over the State Pact. He claimed it suffered from “serious legal defects” and that it may be unconstitutional due to it having been passed without Parliamentary approval. Casado has threatened to take the matter to Spain’s Supreme Court.
‘TRAGEDIES’: Calvo (inset) spoke out over gender violence and protests erupted previously.
CREDIT: Carmen Calvo (inset), Coffee Meets Polished, both via Twitter