Madrid, (EFE).- The Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Spain recalled this Saturday the 30th anniversary of the murder of Lucrecia Pérez, known as the “first hate crime in Spain” and which was a starting point for the fight for the rights of immigrants in the country.
Lucrecia Pérez was born in Barahona (Dominican Republic) in 1959 and had emigrated to Madrid in 1992 to seek a better life for her family, when on the night of November 13 of that year she was murdered by the civil guard Luis Merino accompanied by three minors linked to neo-Nazi groups.
The Dominican ambassador to Spain, Juan Bolívar Díaz, assured in this act in Madrid that Lucrecia “paid dearly for all the immigrants who had preceded her” and became “the martyr of the Dominican and Latin American diaspora”, as she paved the way for a change in Spanish society “that learned to see black and poor immigrants”.
“Even so, there are still small groups that insist on trying to undermine the work of immigrants and Latin Americans who have come to Spain. Deep down they are ignorant, because they ignore that Spain sent millions of her children to America for five centuries and that they are responsible for a culture and relations between America and Europe that are an indisputable reality”, she remarked.
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The “blood of Lucrecia”, Bolívar Díaz pointed out, generated a stage of “consecration of opportunities” that have influenced the nationalization of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from all over Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, with some 115,000 citizens of Dominican Republic who “have received Spanish nationality” and another 75,000 residence permits.
During the event, a dialogue was held on the balance of migration, its challenges and advances, in which the Spanish theologian Juan José Tamayo participated, who recalled the murder of Lucrecia Pérez as her “awakening of conscience towards the recognition and acceptance of immigrants”, especially of “Dominican women”.
“This crime was the best demonstration that hate speech, xenophobic, racist and sexist promoted by the extreme right, in alliance with fundamentalist religious groups and based on ‘fake news’, lead to crimes and the most punished with women , as shown by the increase in femicides, which 30 years later have not been reduced”, he reflected.
In the tribute held at the headquarters of the General Union of Workers (UGT) union, recognitions were given to associations and people who were committed to the case of Lucrecia Pérez and Dominican immigrants, as well as special thanks to Kenia Carvajal, daughter de Lucrecia, who attended the event.
The Dominican journalist and poet Marielys Duluc recited her poem “Ay, Lucrecia” and the singer Vianka Ramos performed the songs “La Tierra Escribada” and “Canción para Lucrecia”.
