Less than five months has allowed the Madrid City Council, from the Popular Party, for a mural to pay homage in the center of the Aravaca neighborhood to the Dominican migrant Lucrecia Pérez, shot to death by neo-Nazis one night in November 1992 in the ruins of the nightclub Four Roses. The wall of the building that sported that mural, located in the central Plaza de la Corona Boreal, woke up this Saturday without the souvenir graffiti, according to reports to elDiario.es by members of the Osa Mayor Neighborhood Association.
Lucrecia, 30 years after the first racist murder in Spain
Further
The reason for removing the mural coincides with a municipal act scheduled for this afternoon: the Moncloa-Aravaca councilor, Loreto Sordo, accompanied by the Security and Emergencies delegate and municipal spokesperson, Inmaculada Sanz, and the councilor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship , Ángel Niño, inaugurates the ‘Aravaca Innovation Lab’ (in Spanish, Aravaca Innovation Laboratory), specialized in cybersecurity.
Más Madrid in the Moncloa-Aravaca district has also denounced the removal of the mural, while the building that the City Council plans to inaugurate today has dawned full of graffiti demanding the return of the tribute. Among others: “The mural will always be there”, “Anti-racist Aravaca”, “Lucrecia, your neighborhood does not forget you”.
🔴 They covered the mural of Lucrecia
They refused to replace it despite the fact that it is approved by the Plenary of the Madrid City Council
A group of neighbors reproduced it
‼️ The Madrid City Council deletes it because TODAY at 12 noon they inaugurate the “Innovation Lab” building c/Caroli 1#Lucretia #StopRacism pic.twitter.com/DJnXvOTKN9
— More Madrid | Moncloa-Aravaca (@Mas_Moncloa) April 1, 2023
The choice of the Plaza de la Corona Boreal, the site where various neighborhood associations and left-wing parties requested that the mural be re-installed, is not anecdotal. In 1992, the colony of Dominican migrants who work as domestic workers in this wealthy Madrid neighborhood met there, as was the case with Lucrecia Pérez.
The mural has suffered comings and goings. Created in the time of Mayor Manuela Carmena, Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida eliminated it at the end of 2021. In 2022, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of what was officially declared the first racist murder in Spain, the City Council inaugurated a roundabout and a monument of remembrance, but in a location –against the will of neighborhood associations– away from the center of the neighborhood, in an area with vehicular traffic and little frequented by Aravaqueños.
On those same dates in November 2022, activists reproduced the mural again in the heart of the neighborhood and it has remained there until this Saturday.
Lucrecia Pérez was assassinated at the age of 32 and when she had only been in Spain for a few weeks. Among the assassins was Luis Merino, a civil guard and the only adult, who was the material author of the events. Lucrecia took refuge that night with other compatriots in the ruins of the Four Roses nightclub in Aravaca. It was the first crime judged as a hate crime with racist motivations in the history of Spain.
www.eldiario.es