Madrid (EFE).- A thousand people have demonstrated this Sunday in Madrid with the motto “Without gluten and without pasta” to ask for economic aid for celiacs and people sensitive to gluten, forced to spend 900 euros more per year on the shopping basket.
In the march, which has run between the ministries of Health and Finance, around 1,000 people have participated, according to sources from the Government Delegation, and some 3,000 according to the organizers.
The participants, many of them families with children, have chanted slogans such as “Justice”, “When I am going to pay, four times more”, “When I am going to pay, this is a robbery”, or “I am celiac, not a millionaire”.
In the first line of the demonstration, two families carried two carts, one with gluten-containing products, a shopping basket valued at 11.92 euros; and another of gluten-free products, with the sign of 43.59 euros.
In front of the Ministry of Finance, next to Puerta del Sol in Madrid, they have read a manifesto in which they have highlighted that celiacs pay an extra 900 euros a year, without any public help, contrary to what happens in other countries Europeans, a situation that they have branded as “unfair and discriminatory”.
Celiacs claim aid: There are families who cannot afford a gluten-free diet
They have demanded “aid now” and have highlighted that there are families that in the current crisis cannot afford a gluten-free diet, the only remedy for a pathology that cannot be medicated.
In statements to journalists, the director of the Association for Celiacs and Gluten Sensitives, Roberto Espina, stressed that they feel discriminated against in comparison to other European citizens and has called for support, be it direct aid, rent discounts or a card to be able to buy specific products.
According to his figures, there are around 600,000 celiacs in Spain and a similar number of people with gluten sensitivity, so more than a million people are forced to buy products without this component.