The former Tefía Penitentiary Colony is proposed as a Place of LGTBIQ+ Democratic Mem

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Radio Sintonia:

The former Tefía Penitentiary Colony is proposed as a Place of LGTBIQ+ Democratic Memory.

Paloma Hernández urges the Government to declare the former prison of Tefía a Place of Democratic Memory
The senator for Fuerteventura, Paloma Hernández, has registered a motion in the Senate as a territorial chamber to ask the Government to declare the former Penitentiary Colony of Tefía, on the island of Fuerteventura, as a Place of Democratic Memory LGTBIQ+.

The proposal, which will be defended in the Constitutional Commission of the Senate, proposes to recognize, by all State institutions, the Events that took place in the former prison of Tefía, as well as to continue promoting policies of reparation of democratic memory and the recognition of its victims in any territory of our country.

In this sense, Hernández states that the LGTBIQ+ collective was one of those that suffered the most from the consequences of Francoism, under the Law of Vagrants and Criminals, which was reformed in 1954 to include these people. "It is essential to promote the recognition of the victims who suffered reprisals and to value democratic principles and historical memory, dignifying the memory of the victims," he said.

The Canarian senator highlights the efforts of the Majorero collective ALTIHAY, which "has been fighting for years so that history is not forgotten and the Events that took place in Tefía are recognized". That is why it urges the Government to collaborate with regional and island administrations and institutions to enable a space for the recognition of the rights of LGTBIQ+ people.

"This collaboration is essential to ensure the preservation of historical memory and the fundamental values of equality and respect in our society. It cannot be forgotten that the Law of Democratic Memory contemplates this group as victims and we are obliged to disseminate and publicize their memory," he adds.

Hernández explains that in 2022 the Law of Democratic Memory was approved, accommodating the recognition of many places, spaces and people who suffered the reprisals of the dictatorship and Francoist ideology in which the Tefía penitentiary center was not recognized.

"From the Socialist Parliamentary Group we pursue the idea of uniting past, present and future so that this project becomes a reality, thus honoring the memory of those who suffered unjustly and guaranteeing that these human rights abuses are never repeated," he concludes.

[Pho]

reposting my note on the camp of a few years ago for those who missed it

Tefia Camp

In 1953, a Special Court was created in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, to apply security measures to people considered dangerous by virtue of the law of Vagrants and Crooks . This law, approved in 1933, had the objective of rehabilitating people whose behaviour could lead to criminal activity. However, it was frequently used as an instrument of repression and social and political control.
In 1954, a Penitentiary Agricultural Colony was created at the abandoned airport at Tefía to accommodate detainees under this law, which was extended to include imprisonment for one to three years for homosexuality.
Life in the labor camp was hard. Inmates undertook agricultural work, forced labor and military training, and suffered beatings, hunger and constant humiliation. They were made to work to exhaustion and subjected to regular mistreatment by officials using whips and canes. Water was taken from a well by prisoners and stored in jerry cans, and there was no electricity. Inmates slept on the floor of the barracks on straw matresses and during the day carried stones, transported water, dug ditches and broke stones. Food was three-day old bread, noodles with goat meat and peas with rooted sweet potatoes mixed with weevils. Washing was permitted only on Saturdays for a very short period of time, and local residents recalled the inmates being marched to and from church on Sundays.
These harsh conditions led two inmates to compare their treatment to that which the Jews received in the concentration camps Only the gas chambers were missing.
During its existence, the colony accommodated between 300 and 350 men, of whom perhaps 100 were there because of their homosexuality. Some other inmates were incarcerated for purely political reasons.
The colony closed in 1966 due to the low number of inmates, who were transferred to prison in Las Palmas. In 2004 the Cabildo installed a plaque in memory of those who were imprisoned in Tefia, and on 17 May 2008 the Government of the Canary Islands celebrated the International Day against Homophobia, by installing another commemorative stone. Some of the buildings in which the prisoners lived can still be seen.