Latin superstar Ricky Martin has written a scathing op-ed for Univision blasting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for booting the network’s news anchor Jorge Ramos out of an Iowa press conference Tuesday.

“The fact that an individual like Donald Trump, a candidate for the presidency of the United States for the Republican party, has the audacity to continue to gratuitously harass the Latin community makes my blood boil,” Mr. Martin, 43, wrote in Spanish, as translated by Billboard. “When did this character assume he could make comments that are racist, absurd, and above all incoherent and ignorant about us Latinos?

“Yesterday’s episode against journalist Jorge Ramos, one of the most beloved and respected Latinos in world media, has gotten to the point of enough is enough,” he continued. “Jorge Ramos was doing HIS JOB as a journalist at a press conference in which he appeared freely and democratically, representing one of the most important Latin television networks in the world and with the same right to freely exercise his profession as all other journalists. But this new character in American politics verbally attacks him and ejects him from the press conference.

“This action from Trump doesn’t surprise me, what does surprise me is that as Hispanics we continue to accept the aggressions and accusations of people like him who attack our dignity. Enough is enough!” he continued.

“We have to defeat the power that Trump pretends to have over Latinos, anchored in low rhetoric and xenophobic speech, which his campaign team is convinced works for him,” Mr. Martin argued. “Let’s show that our Latin race is to be respected, let’s not allow a political hopeful to plant his campaign in insult and humiliation. Let’s demand respect for those first generations of Latinos who came to the United States and opened a path for us. We have fought for every right that we have today.

“Xenophobia as a political strategy is the lowest you can go in search of political power,” he concluded. “This is an issue that unites us and we need to battle it together, not just for us but for the evolution of humanity and those to come.”

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.