Following last week’s terrorist attack which saw a Moroccan man attack churchgoing Catholics—including a priest and a sacristan—with a machete as he shouted “Allahu akbar,” Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s national-conservative VOX party, has stated plainly that Islamism is not compatible with the West.
In statements given to the Madrid-based newspaper La Gaceta de la Iberosfera days ago, Abascal offered his condolences to the relatives and close friends of Diego Valencia, the local sacristan who lost his life during the terrorist attack in Algeciras, and asserted that VOX will not tolerate being lectured that Spaniards must “get used to these kinds of atrocities” taking place on their soil.
“My condolences to the family and friends of the victim. Some open the doors for them, others finance them, and people suffer from them. We cannot tolerate Islamism advancing on our soil,” the VOX chief wrote on social media.
Abascal also denounced the “progressive Islamization” of Spain which has been allowed to take place under the left-liberal government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“VOX has been on the receiving end of attacks since its foundation for denouncing the Islamization of our country and … when saying that Islamism is incompatible with the West, because it is,” Abascal told the newspaper.
“Today we will see how those who habitually silence this threat will put their hands to their heads, and in a few weeks, they will attack us for denouncing a fact that is a reality throughout Europe,” he continued.
“[The assailant] entered Spain illegally, he had an expulsion order, he was under surveillance for jihadism, he was a squatter. How many others like him are there in Spain? The human trafficking mafias and the politicians who open their borders and shower them with subsidies cannot hide their responsibility,” Abascal wrote on Twitter.
Abascal’s sentiments have been echoed by Ignacio Garriga, the general secretary of VOX, who declared that “Islamism threatens our civilization and roams freely in our streets.”
“Today he takes the life of a sacristan, a few years ago he did it for women and children in Barcelona and Tarragona. We have to fight them,” Garriga stated.
An investigation into the terrorist attack has since been opened by Spain’s National Court. VOX has called for an urgent debate to be held in the European Parliament to discuss the matter of Islamism in Europe.
