Monday 15 March 2010

Government censors Spanish TV documentary on destruction of coastline

(Agencies / Photo of Mar Menor coastline: El País) The Ministry of the Environment has blocked the emission of a documentary for TVE (Televisión Española) that was commissioned in 2006 by the then Minister, Cristina Narbona and financed with €1,292,874 of public money (TVE is also financed with public money and no longer accepts advertising). The Government is demanding the removal of a two minute section that is extracted from news reports on corruption, but the man responsible for the documentary, Granada University Professor of Coasts Miguel Ángel Losada, has not agreed to its removal. He said, "Unfortunately, corruption is part of our history. If we hide it we are condemned to repeating it." The documentary, with excellent aerial views of the nation's coastline, consists of 13 parts, of which 12 have been okayed by the ministry. Part 12 contains the section that is being censored (see it here in Spanish, with the disputed piece marked out).>
The documentary, which took two years to film, was written by Losada and journalist Julio de Benito, now deceased. Losada says that with respect for De Benito he cannot agree to any changes to the documentary they completed. He admits that the documentary shows "flagrant violations of the Law on Coasts and the Constitution. The aerial photography is painful because much of it shows the deterioration of a coastline that has gone from being unique to one used as foundations for building."

The film interviews jurists such as Tomás de la Quadra, the coordinating prosecutor for the Environment, Antonio Vercher -who says on camera that the deterioration is "a collective suicide"- and the writer of the 1988, and current, Law of Coasts, Fernando Palao. Specific cases are also cited in the documentary, such as those at Prat de Cabanes, Chilches and Moncófar, all in Castellón.

A voice-over narrator says, "The coastline concentrates a substantial part of environmental and town planning violations, of illegal buildings and demolition court orders. Behind them hides a social complicity with urban development corruption, which is manifested with the connivance of functionaries, holders of public posts, professionals and supply companies. All of them have consented to illicit activity andcorrupt practices. Why is there so much abuse, excess and corruption?"

Further on: "A large part of the Spanish coastline is in private hands, built up, profoundly altered or destroyed. In many cases, there are is no public access to the beach [which is a legal obligation]."

In an e-mail sent to El País in response to the newspaper's enquiries, a spokesperson for the Ministry admitted that, aside from technical objections, the department headed by Elena Espinosa "requested that two minutes be eliminated from a section lasting 45 minutes, in which it was stated that the problems on the coastline are the result of corruption." The e-mail added the following justification: "In the opinion of the Ministry for the Environment, Countryside and Sea, the situation at the Spanish coastline is causedby bad urban planning and an excess of building, independent of [whatever] corruption there may unfortunately be."

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