Storm over the beating in Murcia

The assault on the councilor (department head) for Culture in the regional government of Murcia, Pedro Alberto Cruz, has been emphatically condemned by all the political parties represented in the regional parliament. Even so, the Popular Party (PP) is making a show of indignation, and is trying to establish a direct relation between the criticism (centered on drastic spending cuts in the public health and education systems) aimed at the councilor by the Murcian Socialists, and the brutal beating he received.

The PP is also accusing the Interior Ministry of malicious passivity, and demanding the resignation of the national government delegate in the region. The PP's national leadership has not only failed to restrain these serious accusations; it has endorsed and on occasion amplified them.

It is simply foolhardy if, even before the judicial investigation collects the first data on the assault, the regional premier of Murcia, Ramón Luis Valcárcel, firmly attributes responsibilities without a shadow of a doubt. To this end he used a sort of reasoning that is dangerous in the mouth of anyone, and much more so in one who holds public office. Valcárcel said that, since the left is all one and the same, the Socialist party is to blame, regardless of who the aggressors actually were.

The Murcian premier is perhaps not fully aware of the storm that is liable to result when - contrary to a basic norm in any democratic state, which he is obliged to respect and to see to it that others respect - he publicly speaks of collective responsibility for a crime. And on its part, the national leadership of the Popular Party seems to countenance and accept this loose talk, in so far as it tends to convey the image that, as well as making mistakes, the national Socialist Party government tolerates or even encourages violence.

The victim of the attack by masked assailants, Pedro Alberto Cruz, has a right to a judicial investigation that will get to the bottom of the incident, and to see justice done in the case. So do the citizens, who trust to the functioning of the courts, have a right to see justice served.

However, those who are interfering with this right are not the police or the judicial system, but the regional government of which Cruz forms part, since their pretension seems to be to treat it as a definitely clear-cut case, with the sole intention of stigmatizing their political adversaries, and in this way making a quick electoral profit.

In a democratic state, it is the job of the courts to investigate crimes as serious as an assault on an elected public representative, to determine who was responsible, and convict the perpetrators.

As of Monday, one man has been arrested for his presumed role in the attack.

As for the role of a regional premier, there is something that he should in no case do: exacerbate public emotions by propagating accusations while the courts are at work on the case. This is exactly what Ramón Luis Valcárcel is doing - and, following his example, the leadership of the Popular Party.