Gay victims of Franco cleared

16 December 2004

MADRID-In a move welcomed by gay rights groups, the Spanish parliament has unanimously approved a declaration clearing homosexuals punished under the authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco.

The rights groups said they hoped the parliamentary measure would be followed by financial compensation for gays, who did not benefit from an amnesty until after the adoption in 1978 of a democratic constitution.

Historians estimate between 1,000 and 5,000 homosexuals were locked up in camps at Huelva and Badajoz for “re-education.”

During the civil war preceding the Francoist victory, many homosexuals were persecuted and murdered,including the poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

The parliamentary declaration offered “moral rehabilitation for all the suffering they endured.”

Beatrix Gimeno, head of a federation of gays, lesbians and trans-sexuals, said the declaration marked “the end of a cycle of persecution.”

The socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has set up a high-level commission to study the fate of the various groups persecuted under Franco, who ruled from 1939 until his death in November 1975.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news