A Barcelona judge investigates four neighbors for “humiliating” tweets to the Canet family of 25%
A Barcelona judge has summoned four neighbors as under investigation, whom the prosecution accuses of committing a crime against fundamental rights and freedoms for having made “humiliating” tweets against the Canet de Mar family, to get the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) to order the Turó del Drac school that the P5 class where her daughter goes be taught 25% of classes in Spanish. The head of the investigating court 12 of Barcelona has summoned them to testify this September.
The Prosecutor for Hate Crimes and Discrimination, led by Miguel Ángel Aguilar, opened an investigation last December, upon receiving different complaints from Vox, Hablemos Español and the Assembly for a Bilingual School for these statements on Twitter, and in some cases archived the proceedings for some people and in others he has denounced them before the court, like these four residents of Barcelona. There is another complaint filed by the prosecution in a court in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, which is pending whether it is admitted for processing.
The prosecution affirms that it was for the family to desist
The complaint from the Odio prosecutor’s office states that the four defendants published “humiliating and hurtful” expressions on Twitter against the family of a minor enrolled in the Turó del Drac school, who, upon obtaining a ruling in favor of 25% of Spanish, requested its application and those accused expressly pointed to them “in retaliation to humiliate and harass them and requesting isolation, including that of the minor from the rest of her classmates”, and, therefore, her social exclusion for exercising her right to use the language Castilian in the terms set by the courts”. With these actions, according to the prosecution, the denounced “pursued to generate in the family feelings of anguish, anxiety and intimidation that would make them desist from their claim, also serving as a warning to other families that could have identical linguistic approaches”.
One of the defendants identified to the family
Regarding the tweets, published in December 2021, one of the defendants insults the parents and puts them “Ñ de ñordo” and asks that the girl be left alone at school, “with the humiliating consequences that she behaves” , according to the prosecution. Another published the names and surnames of the family in order to be publicly recognized and “singled out for their linguistic claimscalling for them to suffer a mediatic hell and that they leave the town”, and the prosecutor maintains “all in a tone of contempt and animosity for everyone who speaks Spanish in Catalonia.” The third also proposed to isolate the girl and branded the parents of “unintegrated settlers and terrorists”.
“Resify the minor” to make channels
The fourth defendant, according to the prosecutor, publicly mocked the Spanish-speaking minor downgrading it and objectifying it as if it were meat to make cannelloni, and attributing to his family the condition of being a fascistwith the consequent humiliation, individualized and publicly pointing her out for speaking in Spanish”. With this complaint, Judge Sergio Escalona has ruled that they can be criminal acts punishable by up to two years in prison and summons the four defendants to testify as investigated on 1 , on September 5 and 12.
Given the complaints about these insults on social networks and about an alleged attempt to harm the family, the school clarified that neither the minor nor the parents had received any insults or threats from other families in the center.
linguistic controversy
The resolution of the TSJC that imposed 25% of Spanish in a class did happen that thirty families of other minors of this class, with the legal support of Òmnium, asked the TSJC to stop the execution of the sentence because they also felt harmed. The court did not order it as a precautionary measure and now he has to settle the fund. The court is the same one that has sent to the Constitutional Court (TC) the two linguistic norms of Education approved by the Govern and the Parlament to overcome the sentence of 25% and that the “unconstitutional” qualifications.