If the left is given impunity to incite violence, then they shouldn't come crying later

The use of violence for political purposes is a temptation that totalitarians always succumb to in order to gain advantages.

Four police officers and a journalist injured by the far-left after a socialist targeting
22 Spanish police officers injured in a violent protest fueled and praised by the government

What some seem to forget is that political violence is often a boomerang that turns back on those who throw it. Let's remember. Twelve years ago, the Spanish left launched a wave of harassment against political rivals, crimes they whitewashed by calling them "escraches" (public shaming protests). Politicians from the People's Party saw how left-wing activists harassed them in their homes and in some cases even received death threats. A few years later, in May 2020, and already under the government of Pedro Sánchez, the then second vice president and leader of Podemos, the communist Pablo Iglesias Turrión, threatened opposition members of parliament with further acts of harassment against their homes, an attitude typical of the mafia.

This strategy of the far left was not new: it is the same dehumanization of political rivals carried out by communists and Nazis in the last century, a way of disrupting social harmony that not only aimed to intimidate political opponents: its ultimate purpose was to justify the physical elimination of the adversaries. In Spain, we have a very recent example of the extremes to which this criminal understanding of politics can lead: there are the 853 murders committed by ETA (including the murders of 22 children and babies), crimes that to this day remain uncondemned by EH Bildu, one of the parliamentary allies of Pedro Sánchez's government.

Yesterday, as is their custom, the political far left openly justified the hooded criminals who injured a journalist and four police officers in Pamplona on Wednesday. In a message posted yesterday afternoon on her Twitter account, the communist Ione Belarra, general secretary of Podemos, wrote:

"The anti-fascists in Navarre have done more and better to stop the hater Vito Quiles than the entire PSOE, especially the Speaker of the Congress, and those who laugh at his jokes. Fascism is not a joke and it must be stopped everywhere before it's too late."

An hour later, the communist Irene Montero, MEP for Podemos, stated:

"El movimiento antifa -lleno de jóvenes, por cierto- está asumiendo el principal deber ciudadano de nuestro tiempo: hacer de las universidades y las calles espacios seguros libres de fascismo".

This is justifying and encouraging violence, something intolerable in a democracy, and even more so when we are talking about two people who receive public salaries paid by all Spaniards, including those who were attacked by that horde of criminals whom Podemos praises. A month and a half ago I already explained here that the Law on Political Parties states the following in Article 9.2:

"Un partido político será declarado ilegal cuando su actividad vulnere los principios democráticos, particularmente cuando con la misma persiga deteriorar o destruir el régimen de libertades o imposibilitar o eliminar el sistema democrático, mediante alguna de las siguientes conductas, realizadas de forma reiterada y grave:" (...)

"b) Fomentar, propiciar o legitimar la violencia como método para la consecución de objetivos políticos o para hacer desaparecer las condiciones precisas para el ejercicio de la democracia, del pluralismo y de las libertades políticas".

If the Public Prosecutor's Office does not act immediately against these messages from these two Podemos leaders, if impunity is granted to the far left to commit a crime (inciting violence) punishable by up to four years in prison and defined in Article 510 of the Penal Code, then the government —which gives orders to the Public Prosecutor's Office in the case of Spain— will be responsible for all the damage caused by this violence, both politically and morally, as well as in the criminal sphere.

Finally, Podemos seems to have forgotten what its founders provoked by encouraging harassment against their rivals: when they came to power, the protests reached their homes, carried out by people who hadn't forgotten that Pablo Iglesias had called the "escraches" (public shaming protests) "democratic medicine." He only stopped liking them when he and his partner Irene Montero began to experience them firsthand in front of the luxurious villa they bought in Galapagar.

The far left still hasn't learned a lesson from history: political violence always backfires on its instigators. There are countless examples, but the communists in Podemos seem to have missed the point entirely. Of course, the violence the far left is now encouraging will eventually turn against them, because every time they incite it, every time their violent gangs harass, threaten, and attack others for having different opinions, the message they're sending is that violence is a legitimate method for achieving goals. It will suffice to say, for example, that the "fascists" are those in Podemos for some "antifascists" to act against them (after all, in democratic terms, there's nothing more like a Nazi than a communist). Don't come crying later.

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Main image: Podemos. Irene Montero, political secretary and MEP of Podemos, and Ione Belarra, general secretary and national deputy of Podemos, at a demonstration against Israel on June 20, 2025.