PP lawmaker Ana Belén Vázquez has attacked Congress speaker Francina Armengol after being expelled from the chamber for displaying pepper spray. Vázquez called Armengol a “hooligan” for wanting to “wreck” the plenary session to silence the Popular Party and insisted that the canister she had shown “is not a weapon.”
Vázquez made the remarks in the corridors of Congress after Armengol ordered her to leave the chamber and hand over the canister, considering it “a weapon.” The speaker justified her decision under the Royal Decree on Weapons Regulations and Article 101 of the chamber’s rules. The lawmaker had displayed the canister while questioning Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, stressing that it was “basic school equipment” for girls in Ceuta.
Vázquez repeatedly insisted that the spray was not a weapon. “It is not a weapon” because “it only contains 30 milliliters,” she said, adding that she had emptied it in the street before entering.
A corrupt government that is completely directionless is gagging us
“A corrupt government that is completely directionless is gagging us; they tried to hire hitmen to attack a judge.” This is a democratic country, and I will put the voices of the women and girls of Ceuta above everything else, even if they throw me out today,” she said.
The lawmaker also attacked Armengol, calling her the “23rd minister,” and stressed that she had tried to “wreck the plenary session” and had “made up” her accusation. She said that, as a result, the speaker had claimed that “all the women in Ceuta and all the girls who go to school and carry this pepper spray as basic equipment are all walking around the streets armed.”
REGULATIONS ON PERSONAL DEFENSE SPRAYS
Vázquez maintains that Armengol tried to circumvent the rules by calling her to order and expelling her because the spray “is fully legal and excluded from the weapons regulations, but she knew that.”
Article 5 of the weapons regulations states that “the advertising, sale, purchase, possession and use are prohibited, except by specially authorized officials and in accordance with the provisions of the respective regulations,” including “personal defense sprays and all weapons that emit gases or aerosols, as well as any device incorporating mechanisms capable of projecting narcotic, toxic or corrosive substances.”
It then adds that “personal defense sprays are exempted when, following the corresponding approval by the Ministry of Health and a prior report from the Permanent Interministerial Commission on Weapons and Explosives, they are deemed permissible. In that case, they may be sold in gun shops to people who prove they are of legal age by presenting their national identity card, passport or other documents proving their identity.”
VÁZQUEZ SAYS SHE WILL BRING IT AGAIN
As for Congress regulations, the aforementioned Article 101 states that a lawmaker may be suspended “when carrying weapons inside the parliamentary premises.”
“I’ll bring it back as many times as necessary because, unfortunately, many women—not only in Ceuta but throughout Spain—are seeing sex crimes increase,” Vázquez said, insisting that “it has been very sad that they used the Congress of Deputies, national sovereignty and the seat of all Spaniards to try to silence us and throw us out simply because we brought this.”
Vázquez then went to her office, outraged and “surprised,” and said she would speak with her parliamentary group to decide what action to take. She also voiced her displeasure that ERC spokesman Gabriel Rufián was not expelled when he brought bullet casings into the chamber.
