Ben Amics challenges Cort and moves Pride to the Part Forana
The conflict with the Palma City Council is worsening after the collective denounces attempts to remove it from the organization and promotes its own events outside the capital
PalmaThe celebration and claim of the LGTBIQ+ Pride 2026 will be mostly moved to the Part Forana after disagreements between Ben Amics and the Palma City Council, which have led the association to cancel the musical celebration it had been organizing for years. However, the main demonstration will be held on Sunday, June 28 at 7:00 PM in Plaça d’Espanya in Palma. On the other hand, one of the most anticipated events, the delivery of the Siurell and Dimoni Rosa awards, will take place on Saturday the 27th in Manacor, a municipality that has offered to host activities after the controversy in Palma and the breakdown between Ben Amics and the City Council.
The City Council will hold an independent event without the collective's support. “The planning is framed within the Part Forana, with festive activities thanks to entities and associations that provide spaces”, explained the technical coordinator of Ben Amics, Jan Gómez. Events will also be held in Montuïri and Port de Pollença, and some others in Palma. Tambors per la Pau, the Fundació Vint-i-sis de desembre, Cineciutat, the Fundació Nadie y Vándalas will collaborate, in addition to Ben Amics and the city councils of Manacor and Pollença.
The collective will take to the streets under the slogan 'To the streets with pride, resilience and resistance', with the poster by Lluïsa Febrer. Gómez warned that “this year we are playing the history of the LGTBI movement” and alerted to the institutional will to “empty Pride of content and turn it into a mere formality”. Gómez remarked that “the City Council will have to decide if it wants to govern with its back to the citizens” and defended that the collective “have been tolerant, we have not asked for more budget or more involvement, we have endured”. Along these lines, he explained that the only thing they have denounced is that, when the deadlines established for the processing of events are not met, “our association is mistreated”, and regretted having been “called liars”.
Criticisms of Cort
Ben Amics has criticized the municipal management, assuring that “the mayor has not lifted a finger to generate reconciliation”, while also pointing out that “workshops on sexual diversity have been suppressed in Palma schools” and that there is no communication with the City Council “even though they say they are open”. Finally, it has indicated that the program will be developed mainly in the Part Forana, with festive activities promoted by entities and associations that lend spaces. For all these reasons, Ben Amics proposes Jaime Martínez as a candidate to receive the Dimoni Rosa.
The conflict between Ben Amics and the Palma City Council has intensified after Cort announced that it will organize its own Pride Day celebration for the first time, a decision that the LGTBIQ+ entity considers an attempt to sideline it from managing the celebration. The association denounces that this action breaks the consensus that until now had guaranteed the balance between the demanding demonstration and the festive events, and accuses the council of promoting a pinkwashing strategy to empty Pride of content and turn it into a "tourist event without political dimension".
On the other hand, the City Council maintains that Pride Day has been declared a day of municipal interest and that it keeps cooperation channels open, although no agreement has been reached with Ben Amics. The breakdown occurred after months of tensions, with mutual recriminations for lack of planning and for the prior cancellation of the event by the entity, which also attributes the conflict to a setback in equality policies and the suppression of diversity workshops. Ben Amics now demands that Cort rectify and that the mayor offer public apologies.