The Barcelona City Council, through the Office for Non-Discrimination, has denounced the authors of a message, disseminated through social networks, explaining that the Civil Guard has detected the presence of 1,600 registered Maghrebi residents, in Morocco, fraudulently registered at an address where only five people lived, to collect social benefits, and vote by mail in municipal elections. The consistory has already identified its authors, whom it considers responsible for a hate crime. Among them are jurists, psychologists, civil guards or police inspectors.
As explained in the document presented, the consistory has been able to verify that the message has been widely disseminated through different social networks such as whatsapp, twitter and others, “obtaining tens of thousands of views and many other shares, obtaining notorious publicity”.
From the analysis carried out, it concludes that “apart from the slanderous content towards the mayoress of Barcelona, ??it represents an incitement to hatred, resentment and animosity towards the Maghreb community of Morocco due to their origin, directly and massively attributing to them the commission of a scam that affects all citizens, to register in the city, despite not residing in it, and thus obtain the administrative benefits associated with registration, collect aid, and thus also vote fraudulently by mail in the elections.
The legal report also points out that the authors were aware “of the absolute falsity of the message due to its total implausibility, not accompanied by any news or journalistic reference that would allow credibility to be attributed to it, but rather that they took refuge in a harmful and stigmatizing belief regarding the which Maghrebis fraudulently register at homes to obtain financial aid”.
Thus, the Prosecutor’s letter identifies four twitter accounts that have echoed the text, behind which is, among others, a Civil Guard agent and a police inspector. The complaint concludes that “these events cannot be protected by the right to freedom of expression”, given that they “clearly and explicitly” represent contempt and humiliation for the Maghrebi community, and include discriminatory messages that promote violence between the group of foreigners”.
