Ben Amics explodes against the City Council: it accuses it of expelling the LGTBIQ+ collective from Pride after organizing a parallel street party

PalmaBen Amics has lashed out at Palma City Council, accusing it of attempting to expel the LGTBIQ+ collective from Pride Day, after Cort announced it is organizing its own festival. According to the association, which issued a statement this Wednesday, this decision "breaks the social and political consensus" that until now guaranteed the balance between the demonstration and the Pride festival.

Cort's spokesperson, Mercedes Celeste, announced this morning that the City Council's Governing Board has declared Pride Day a day of municipal interest and that a festival will be held on June 27th in Plaça Major. Although the councilor stated that channels remain "open" for possible co-organizers, Ben Amics considers that this "unilateral" decision by the Consistory confirms the "pinkwashing strategy" with which it intends to expel the collective from the organization of Pride.

The consensus that had been maintained until now with the administrations involved the explicit commitment not to alter the place or time of the celebration so as not to lose "the activist content and the defense of human rights". The action of Palma City Council "consumes a strategy to appropriate the meaning and management of Pride" and to turn the collective's demand into "a tourist afternoon devoid of content", the association has criticized. Ben Amics has demanded that Cort rectify immediately and that Mayor Jaime Martínez issue a public apology.

Cort has decided to organize the Pride festival on its own after failing to reach an agreement with Ben Amics, which cancelled the event and accused the City Council of lack of planning. The association pointed out that this situation exemplifies the "clear setback" for the LGTBIQ+ collective in Mallorca and lamented that neither rights nor diversity are a priority for institutions at this time. Ben Amics stressed that the cancellation of Pride was "the final blow" to municipal equality policies after the suppression of sexual and gender diversity workshops by PalmaEduca.

The conflict between Ben Amics and Cort has been dragging on since April 22, 85 days after the first coordination attempt with the City Council. A meeting was called which the councilor responsible did not attend, no concrete plan or clear guidelines were presented. The contract to organize the event was still being drafted and the responsible area had not even been assigned.