Barcelona City Council, through the Non-Discrimination Office, ha reported to the prosecution for a hate crime against the authors of a false message, disseminated through social networks, where it was explained that the Civil Guard had detected the presence of 1,600 people, residents of Morocco, fraudulently registered in an apartment where only five people resided, to collect social benefits and vote by mail in municipal elections.
“New scandal involving the mayoress of Barcelona and her government team”. This sentence headed the message broadcast on March 15 and 16 about the alleged home “from the Horta-Guinardó area” where “1,6000 registrants of Maghreb origin appeared”. The authors of the text stressed that there could be many more floors of these characteristics and that the scandal had been “covered up” by the media. The attack on the mayoress of Barcelona was direct: “If Colau wins the next municipal elections, she and she will be able to start thinking about where the votes come from.”
The Consistory has been able to verify that the message has been “widely” disseminated on social networks, for WhatsApp, Twitter, among others, “obtaining tens of thousands of views and so many other shares”, which has caused “notorious publicity”, maintains the municipal team. In his complaint, he stresses that this text, “apart from the undoubted slanderous content towards the mayoress of Barcelona, represents an incitement to hatred, resentment and animosity towards the Maghreb community of Morocco”, by attributing them “directly and massively” the commission of a scam. Specifically, fraudulent registration in the city without residing to “obtain administrative benefits.”
“Stigmatized hoax”
The City Council’s legal report points out that the authors, “among whom they find jurists, psychologists, civil guards and police inspectors”, were aware of “the absolute falsehood of the message due to its total implausibility”. As proof of this, it highlights that it was not accompanied by any news or journalistic reference that would allow it to be attributed credibility, but rather that it relied on “a harmful and stigmatized hoax regarding the fact that North Africans register fraudulently at home to obtain financial aid”.
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The City Council identifies four Twitter accounts that echoed the text, behind which there are, among other people, a Civil Guard agent, LC, who got 2,711 views, and a police inspector, RL C, with 89,900 views. The complaint concludes that “these factsor may be protected by the right to freedom of expression”because in a “clear and explicit way” they represent a “contempt and humiliation” for the Maghrebi community and that of Morocco”.
For this reason, the City Council considers that the events could constitute a hate crime, punishable by imprisonment from one to four years and a fine, and proposes that the Mossos collect the necessary data on the authorship and affiliation data of the people behind the identified Twitter profiles and find out if there have been other massive shares.