Lecture by Dionisio Pereira: book presentation: Franco's repression in Al Hoceima and the Central Rif during the Spanish Civil War

We begin the 2025-2026 academic year with a new lecture in HISTAGRA's Uncomfortable Past series. On this occasion, researcher Dionisio Pereira presents his latest publication, Franco's repression in Al Hoceima and the Central Rif during the Spanish Civil War, in a bilingual Arabic-Spanish format, published in Tangier by the Rif collective Tifraz n'Rif.

Fifty people linked to the Central Rif were shot between 1936 and 1939, in Al Hoceima/Villa Sanjurjo itself and its surroundings, and in the forts of Rostrogordo in Melilla and El Hacho in Ceuta. In addition, the publication manages a database of more than 150 Spanish residents who suffered reprisals in various forms, some of them resulting in death. Finally, and even more ignored, it also documents how an unknown number of Rifians belonging to different tribes in the Central Rif were subjected to excessive violence (including death and torture) for refusing to be recruited as soldiers to fight with Franco in the Civil War in the Regulares corps. This little-known fact demonstrates that the brutality exercised in the last African War (1921-1927) continued to be used in subsequent decades, against those who opposed the rule of the Spanish Francoist military who governed the Protectorate. Ultimately, the book aims to spread awareness among the former Spanish population of these territories and the current residents of Al Hoceima of the imperative that the comforting memory of times past cannot be built on the oblivion of victims and the burial of civil rights.

Details:
Date: 17/09/2025
Title: Franco's repression in Al Hoceima and the Central Rif during the Spanish Civil War
Speaker: Dionisio Pereira
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Room 13, Faculty of History

Further information: 
https://histagra.usc.es/eres histagra@usc.es. Tel. 881971010 (ext. 100)