In Gijón was designated on 2 October 2026 as the mining complex Mina La Camocha in Lugar de Memoria Democrática . At the unveiling of a commemorative plaque the Secretary of State for Memoria Democrática, Fernando Martínez, honoured the site as the setting for significant workers’ protests in the post-war Franco era. He also called for a general mobilisation against speculators, to protect sites of collective memory from purely commercial exploitation.
The legal basis for the designation is a resolution published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado by the Secretaría de Estado de Memoria Democrática on 12 June 2026. The administrative process is based on the Ley 20/2022 on Memoria Democrática and was initiated in June 2025. Representatives of the central government and local representatives from the Asturian city of Gijón attended the ceremony.
State documents emphasise the role of Mina La Camocha in the emergence of independent trade union structures in the 1950s and 1960s, when free trade unions were banned. The labour disputes of January 1957 and the strikes of 1962 and 1963 are repeatedly cited in this context and are considered formative in the region’s culture of remembrance. Recognition as a Lugar de Memoria Democrática is intended to ensure that this historical context remains visible.
Martínez linked the designation of the site to current political concerns. He said the aim was to protect places of remembrance from speculative development and safeguard their social and historical role in the urban landscape. According to participants, local authorities and associations welcomed the move. Regional media also reported debates about the future treatment of controversial monuments in Asturias which point to possible legal disputes in individual cases. These views are attributed to political actors; no new court rulings were announced at the event.
By declaring Mina La Camocha a Lugar de Memoria Democrática, the central government is reaffirming its approach of mapping, protecting and interpreting places of historical significance or a troubled past. The commemorative event in Gijón thus marks an administratively documented step that links the site’s recorded past with present-day questions of heritage protection and land use.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).