The testimonies of women who accuse Íñigo Errejón of sexist behavior or sexual harassment are not limited to his mandate as spokesperson for Sumar, which was severed Thursday with his resignation.
Some of his testimonies known in recent days date back to his time as number two of Podemos, and even until 2014, the year he founded the purple party with Pablo Iglesias and Juan Carlos Monedero.
Digital The jump published this weekend the personal story of a woman who had several encounters with Errejón, after meeting him in an event organized by Podemos in June 2014 at the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville.
The woman, who was then 23 years old and who claims to have numerous messages from Errejón proving their relationship, recounts the first meeting they both had in an apartment in the Lavapiés neighborhood, during which the leader of Podemos at the time announced to him that I had to take on the role of “his whore”.
“It was aggressive, violent and humiliatingThis was not what was agreed upon,” the woman said.It was like a crude porn movie heteronormative. “Hair pulling, slapping, nasty phrases.”
Then, Errejón explained to him that their meetings had to be more discreet, because of the notoriety that politics gave him, thanks to the party that claimed the legacy of 15-M.
The woman recounts another meeting in a Seville hotel, during which the Podemos leader ended up treating her with absolute disdain after having sex: “He didn’t even look at me, he started to read a book and told me that he was an important person who had a lot of work.” , and that he greatly appreciated the notoriety he acquired. He acted as if I wasn’t there, he treated me with deep contempt“.
More Madrid city councilor Rita Maestre, who at the time was Errejón’s partner, published a public letter on Sunday in which she admitted feeling “shocked” and “deeply deceived“, now knowing “the episodes of misogenic behavior and violence reported by the victims”.
Only now has he understood, he explains, that under the guise of a “good boyfriend”, Errejón was at the same time “a misogynist who went home normally”. after attacking a 20-year-old woman in a hotel“.
Former Podemos secretary general Pablo Iglesias assured TVE on Thursday that he was not surprised by the women’s accusations that pushed Errejón to resign.
“I didn’t have a good personal or political opinion” about him, Iglesias admitted, “it’s been more than five years since we spoke or shared environments. But he was my friend and I’m not happy that there is such a grim ending“, he stressed.
Pablo Iglesias on Errejón: “He was my friend and I’m not happy that he has such a sinister end like this, but the victims come first. When I see the tweet of the President of the Government, he remembers his government partner more than the victims.#59seconds
▶️… pic.twitter.com/SDtjvM7NZq– RTVE News (@rtvenoticias) October 24, 2024
For her part, the journalist Cristina Fallarás published another anonymous testimony from a woman, who also met Errejón at that time: “Everything that happened with Íñigo was virtually, in a cybersex relationship, but The treatment I experienced was unpleasant and degrading.“.
“I felt a strong relationship of power towards myself, as if nothing mattered to me, neither my desire nor my needs,” says the same woman, “I felt that I was an object and that He exercised power over me, without caring about me at all.“. The woman finally left the hotel room, without Errejón even looking at her.
Contrary to the complaint filed Friday at the police station by actress and presenter Elisa Mouliaa, who claims to have felt violated with “non-consensual” sexual relations, the events described in the two testimonies dating back to the Podemos scene did not could cover criminal relevance.
In any case, they would show humiliating treatment of womenwhich hardly fits with the feminist discourse that Errejón publicly defended as Sumar’s spokesperson.
It’s about the irreconcilable.”contradiction between person and character” to which Errejón alluded in his letter on Thursday, when announcing his resignation from all the political functions he held.
During the aforementioned intervention on Thursday on TVE, Pablo Iglesias publicly thanked journalist Cristina Fallarás for having “risked her face” to open her Instagram account “a safe space where women can dare to speak out some things that were very difficult to report in this country.
Throughout the weekend, different leaders of Podemos and Sumar (from Vice President Yolanda Díaz to the former minister) Irene Montero) encouraged the women concerned to use Cristina Fallarás’s Instagram account as a mailbox to broadcast anonymous complaints, without going to court.
Sexists, aggressors, violent people are afraid of safe channels allowing women who have been victims to denounce violence. All my support for Cristina Fallarás and my deep rejection of the temporary closure of her account.
– Ione Belarra (@ionebelarra) October 26, 2024
Even if Cristina Fallarás opened the vault of thunder and triggered a MeToo with unpredictable consequences. In recent weeks, he has aired allegations of sexual abuse against figures including “a certain left-wing rapper and supposedly feminist ally“, a “well-known radio host who played rock, heavy metal and football in the 80s” or “a political scientist and CUP activist” who had extramarital affairs.
Always without first and last names, but in some cases with easily recognizable details and profiles.
This initiative was a catharsis for women who, after having suffered sexual abuse, managed to break their silence. But it also threatens to suppress “concerned politicians from the left and right”, as well as businessmen and representatives of trade unions and the world of culture, as Fallarás announced on Friday in an interview with EL ESPAÑOL.
Only Beatriz Gimeno, who was director of the Women’s Institute within Irene Montero’s ministry, admitted to having felt a certain dizziness in the face of the dynamic of anonymous denunciations that was opened.
“Feminism cannot be denunciations on the networks, public lynchings (I am still against) examine and expose personal sex lives and behaviorsto search for the culprits, those who knew and remained silent,” Gimeno wrote on Saturday after the events that led to the resignation of Íñigo Errejón.
“I’m also not sure it’s fair to the victims in the long term,” she mused. “I guess it’s inevitable in the age of social media, but no society can put up with that forever.” complaints, public denunciation of aggressors and victims, lynchingthe unlimited punishment that never ends.”