Spain - October 2022

A politically fraught law aimed at tackling the legacy of the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco between 1939 and 1975, has been approved by Spain’s Parliament. The Democratic Memory law includes provisions banning organisations that glorify the Franco regime, as well as building up a national database to identify people buried in mass graves. The role of historical memory, as well as the legacy of the Franco regime, continues to be a divisive issue in political debates. An amnesty law, agreed in 1977 during Spain’s democratic transition as part of the Pact of Forgetting, has served as a limiting factor in prosecutions for Franco-era human rights abuses. The new legislation expands a 2007 bill which condemned the Franco regime and mandated the removal of symbols, place names and statues associated with his rule.

Sources: The Guardian, Eurac Research, Euronews, Politico, El País