Shameful Censorship in Valencia

With its biggest popular celebration going on, Valencia should be in the news for its positive aspects. But, nope. The main story in the city for the past week has been the censorship of a few photos from an exhibit looking back on 2009.

The MuVIM’s exhibition, Fragments of a Year, brings together iconic photographs of Valencia from 2009. Politics, sports, entertainment, culture and fiestas, anything that’s made news in the Valencian Community is fair game. Or so we thought!

In blunders politics. Apparently unsatisfied with the stranglehold on power they already enjoy in Valencia, a couple functionaries in the PP have decided it’s their right to hide anything which might portray their comrades in a negative light. In a clumsy move, a public museum was forced to remove images that are politically uncomfortable to the ruling party.

As a result, the director of the MuVIM has resigned. Voices across the political spectrum, including Valencia’s mayor Rita Barberá and the national direction of the PP, are united in condemnation of the censorship. And, of course, more attention than ever is being paid to these pictures. Instead of just being a small part of a retrospective, they’ve become the main attraction. As is always the case, the practitioners of censorship are revealed as stupid and short-sighted.

And we’ll do our part to assist. Without further ado, ladies & gentlemen, the 10 censored images. The stars of the show.

(Photo: Carles Francesc) Camps and mayor Rita Barberá celebrating an electoral victory
(Photo: Vicent Bosch) Scandal-embroiled Ricardo Costa and Francisco Camps button their jackets
(Photo: Miguel Lorenzo) President Camps meets with the archbishop of Valencia, who doesn’t appear all that interested in his sudden piousness
(Photo: José Cuéllar) Two different kinds of power meet; former CV President Victor Campos sits down for a chat with El Bigotes… what could they be talking about?
(Photo: Santiago Carregui) Jorge Alarte of the PSOE meets with Obama’s guru Ravi Singh; perhaps censored because it shows the opposition meeting with a popular emissary? We can only speculate.
(Photo: Miguel Lorenzo) Ricardo Costa, sad after being ousted from power; he remains the only high-ranking casualty of the Gürtel investigations, and has since been given a new job
(Photo: Carles Francesc) Camps leaving the courtroom, where he appeared in connection with the Gürtel corruption investigations
(Photo: Mikel Ponce) Former Prime Minister Aznar (PP) receives an honor; Why might an image as innocent as this be censored? Because he’s smirking a bit? The image seems to cast him in a positive light.
(Photo: Miguel Ángel Montesinos) Zapatero in Valencia during European elections; I have no idea why this was censored
(Photo: Benito Pajares) Camps getting in a car, and receiving a pat on the head from Rita, during the Gürtel tribunals

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Urbicande March 10, 2010

    This story will never stop to amaze me… I mean, can’t the PP hire efficient PR people (or PR people at all)? It’s true that censoring such images has actually created a controversy out of an exhibition that would otherwise have been pretty much unnoticed.

    The photographer caught a gem of a gesture in the last photo. Rita rocks 😉

  2. Fernando March 10, 2010

    I think that the first picture is from the celebration when Valencia was chosen to host the 32nd America’s Cup…

  4. Peter miles November 30, 2014

    The pp ha estado en poder demasiado tiempo. Podemos cambiar, ojalá

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