Begoña Gómez, wife of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, filed her announced complaint against activist Vito Quiles on Wednesday afternoon before the National Police for what happened just a few hours earlier in a restaurant in Las Rozas (Madrid), according to sources from Moncloa reported to La Vanguardia.
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Despite everything, the secretary general of the PP, Miguel Tellado, has urged the PSOE to dismiss its coordinator in Torrelodones for “assaulting” Vito Quiles during the incident with Gómez.
In her complaint, the wife of the head of government recounts the confrontation she had with Quiles, without specifically accusing him of a particular crime. Sources from Moncloa have clarified that it is not Begoña Gómez who should decide the criminal charge that could be brought against Quiles, if any, in this incident.
Government sources have assured that there was no “security breach” during the incident, which occurred when Quiles, according to other sources close to Gómez, prevented her from leaving the establishment, harassing her.
Quiles later posted images of the altercation outside the establishment on social media, not of what happened inside the restaurant, but of the moment when Gómez finally managed to leave the premises.
The images show the prime minister’s wife trying to avoid Quiles’s questions and changing direction several times to evade him. At the same time, two friends accompanying Gómez try to interrupt the recording by lunging at him shouting “take that shit away,” to which the agitator responds by trying to break free and, at one point, refers to them as “charos.” “Stop, charos!” replies Quiles.
Before that, according to Moncloa sources, the agitator entered the establishment and did not let the prime minister’s wife leave. However, this does not appear in the video shared by the troublemaker.
In this situation, the Government expresses its concern that this type of behavior, which has been happening for some time, could become normalized: “This is not normal, it is not freedom of expression, it is intimidation and harassment.”
Likewise, Moncloa sources have insisted that the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, cannot downplay these attitudes, recalling that the PP invited Vito Quiles to the closing of its electoral campaign in Aragón.
In a press conference at the Congress, the number two of the PP, Miguel Tellado, replied to the socialists that in the images released by Vito Quiles it can be “inferred that the assaulted” is the activist – whom he labeled as a “journalist” – although the recording was shared in an edited form.
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Waiting to see more, Tellado warned the PSOE that if it “wants to condemn” the “violence” that occurred during the incident, “it would do well to dismiss that person responsible for the Socialist Party of Torrelodones” for “assaulting,” “and it must be seen in what way,” Quiles. And he opposed “participating in victimization campaigns of anything or anyone.”
“From the Popular Party we condemn all kinds of violence, we always have,” he said. “But we are not going to participate in victimization campaigns of anything or anyone and, therefore, the only thing we can say is that the facts be clarified. In any case, I have seen images where I believe I can infer that the assaulted is a journalist. I do not know of other images that depict a different scene.”
Thus, Tellado rejected “lessons” from a Government that has “relied” on Bildu, “the heirs of a terrorist group,” because he considers it “an insult to intelligence.”
The PP condemns violence against Quiles and “in the case” he suffered it, against Gómez
Along the same lines, the spokesperson for the Popular Group in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has stated that she condemns “any kind of violence and harassment” and has highlighted that, in the case of the episode involving Vito Quiles and the wife of the Prime Minister, Begoña Gómez, “it seems that the one receiving violence” is him. “But in the case it was the other way around, also, of course,” she emphasized. This is how she spoke when asked in the corridors of Congress about the events that took place on Wednesday.
The popular leader also added that she understands “that there are journalists who want to ask questions” because, in her opinion, Sánchez’s wife “stopped being a private person the day she used Moncloa for her business” and “is being investigated and is prosecuted for four crimes.”
The PSOE warns that Quiles “is not a journalist, he is a subsidized fanatic,” and describes his actions as “harassment, persecution, and intimidation”
The PSOE spokesperson, Montse Mínguez, has instead described Vito Quiles’s actions as “harassment, persecution, and intimidation” of Begoña Gómez. “This is not journalism, this is agitation,” she warned, framing it within the “spiral of hatred, insult, and confrontation” that, in her view, the Popular Party and the far-right Vox encourage.
Mínguez insisted, on TVE, that Vito Quiles – who, however, has accreditation as a reporter to enter the Congress of Deputies – “is not a journalist, he is a subsidized fanatic, who acts as a warm-up act for the Popular Party.” “This must be condemned and this must end,” she demanded. And she accused the PP and Vox of “having been whitewashing this type of ultra agitators for many years.” “This is not journalism, this is not freedom of expression. This is harassment and intimidation,” she stressed.
“This is intolerable, this is outrageous and this cannot be allowed. Enough already,” Mínguez concluded.
