Logroño, (EFE).- The former President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, affirmed Thursday that Spain is a country that has to “export rights and feminism” to countries like Afghanistan or Iran, whose situation of women ” tears».
In this sense, he spoke when collecting, in Logroño, the Alicia Izaguirre prize, awarded by the PSOE of La Rioja, which has also been awarded to the journalist Angeles Espinosa from El País, for her contribution to the fight for equality between women and men.
Rodríquez Zapatero has assured that one of the “best” moments of his life was, when in his time as Prime Minister (2004-2012), the law regulating homosexual marriage was approved, since it meant, he said, an advance in Rights.
“When this law was approved, I said that (in Spain) we were going to be the first, but not the last, and that’s how it has been” and, “fortunately, many countries have recognized it,” he added.
At present, he continued, “we can also say today that (in Spain) we are the first to defend the laws in favor of equality and feminism.”
According to Rodríguez Zapatero, “feminism has only just begun, it is going to reach all corners of the Earth and we are committed” to this objective.
He has remembered the socialist Alicia Izaguirre, former government delegate in Extremadura (1993-1996) and the first woman in Spain to head a list to preside over La Rioja, in 1987.
He has praised and congratulated Angeles Espinosa, whom he has defined as “the great journalist from the Middle East”, an area “so decisive, which conditions both the political evolution of the world”.
Espinosa, a native of the Rioja town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, has dedicated this award to Afghan and Iranian women journalists and has said that, “fortunately, there is more concern -among the media that cover these conflict areas- in interviewing women.
She has recognized that, in her professional career in the Middle East, she has refused to see that there were small differences when it comes to making the role of women visible, but, she has recognized that progress has been made and, “fortunately, they are held more in consideration”, when making their role visible.
The general secretary of the La Rioja PSOE and president of the Government of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, has stated that “we cannot take anything for granted, we cannot lower our guard in the fight for real equality”.
He thanked Rodríguez Zapatero and Ángeles Espinosa for their “commitment and work” in defending rights in favor of equality between men and women. EFE.