MADRID, Spain – The newly-appointed high commissioner for the Madrid bomb victims has asked the media to refrain from publishing more images of the March 11 attacks (search), news reports said.
Gregorio Peces-Barba (search), who was appointed last Friday by the government, said the victims and their families "are suffering from solitude and deserve respect."
Speaking to Catalunya Radio on Sunday, he said there was no need to rerun images of something "everybody has already seen."
The post of commissioner for the victims was announced on Wednesday, hours after the spokeswoman for the March 11 Victims Association (search), Pilar Manjon, gave a heart-rending but heavily critical speech before a panel of legislators probing the attacks, saying the victims and their families were being ignored.
In the speech, she denounced the lawmakers for using the bombings for political purposes and the media for constantly using images of the attacks without considering the effect they had on the victims and their families.
Manjon also proposed an independent investigation with no political party involvement but Peces-Barba ruled this out unnecessary.
Peces-Barba is rector of Spain's Carlos III university and one of the fathers of the country's 1978 constitution.
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