Spain: Surge in Support for Conservative Populists

by Soeren Kern • November 20, 2019 at 5:00 am

Spain's media establishment has prohibited representatives of Vox from appearing on national television — apparently in an effort to prevent Spanish voters from knowing more about the Vox platform.
Vox received a major boost after Spanish television was required to allow Abascal to participate, for the first time, in a nationally televised presidential debate, on November 4. More than eight million voters tuned in to the debate, in which Abascal was confident, relaxed, looked his opponents directly in the eye and exuded common sense. Millions of Spaniards who had never before seen the Vox leader speak learned first-hand that the party is patriotic, not the fascist threat portrayed by its detractors in the media.
Vox says that it is "a movement created to put the institutions of government at the service of Spaniards, in contrast to the current model that puts Spaniards at the service of the politicians."
"Vox is the common-sense party, which gives voice to what millions of Spaniards think in their homes; the only party that fights against suffocating political correctness. Vox does not tell Spaniards how they should think, speak or feel. We tell the media and the parties to stop imposing their beliefs on society." — From the Vox mission statement.

Spain's conservative populist party, Vox, more than doubled its seats in parliament after winning 3.6 million votes in general elections held on November 10. It is now the third-largest party in Spain. Pictured: Vox leader Santiago Abascal speaks at an election rally, on October 31, 2019. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

Spain's populist party, Vox, more than doubled its seats in parliament after winning 3.6 million votes in general elections held on November 10. The fast-rising conservative party, which entered parliament for the first time only eight months ago, is now the third-largest party in Spain.

Vox leaders campaigned on a "traditional values" platform of law and order, love of country and a hardline approach to anti-constitutional separatists in the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia.

Vox's meteoric rise is a direct result of the political vacuum created by the mainstream center-right Popular Party, which in recent years has drifted to the left on a raft of domestic and foreign policy issues, including that of uncontrolled mass migration.

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Iran's Crimes against Humanity, 2019

by Denis MacEoin • November 20, 2019 at 4:00 am

"As Iranian, Saudi and other Muslim women around the globe struggled for freedom from the hijab, which they consider a political symbol that has nothing to do with piety, the reaction among the liberal circles in the West was confounding. Here an increasing number of feminists, leftists and the liberal media glorified the hijab as some exotic symbol of women's liberation that had to be embraced." — Tarek Fatah, The Toronto Sun, August 29, 2019
"The Guards are gathering to remove reformists from power." — Najmeh Bozorgmehr, Iranian journalist, Financial Times, October 13, 2019.
The anti-corruption campaign is led by none other than the hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi.... Raisi is widely considered the most likely cleric to succeed to the role of Supreme Leader when Khamenei retires or dies. But Raisi also carries with him a disturbing reputation for judicial violence.

One of the Western hostages that Iran is holding is an innocent British mother, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Her five-year-old daughter, Gabriella, was also being held hostage in Iran until the regime released her last month. Pictured: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard Ratcliffe in 2011. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

On October 10 this year, when an aeroplane flew from Tehran and arrived late that night in London, among those on board was a five-year-old girl named Gabriella. Despite her name, Gabriella was not Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Her father, Richard, is English and her mother, Nazanin, is Iranian with British nationality.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among the best known of the multitude of individuals locked up in Iran's prisons. Her status as a woman with dual nationality, and imprisoned for five years on a charge of espionage without a scrap of evidence, combined with the ongoing campaign for her release by her husband in conjunction with the UK Foreign Office, has given her case repeated publicity in the British press and other media.

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