A Barcelona bus driver has been sentenced to 6 months in prison for a crime under article 510 of the Penal Code, referring to hate crimes, after insulting and harassing a passenger (she was traveling with her 3 minor children) with racist insults and the one who tried to remove the veil.
The events occurred on May 29, 2020. The woman got on that bus with her children aged 3, 10 and 14 and had trouble paying for the ticket for one of those minors when the card failed. That’s where the insults started.
The driver, the sentence reads, “took advantage” of that passenger’s problem to “make allusions to her ethnic origin, since she was wearing clothing typical of North African culture, including a veil covering her hair with phrases like: ‘you come here to live of the story’”.
Far from being satisfied with these first insults, the driver “continued making comments about the ethnic origin of that family and, after several stops along the line, he went to the mother to tell her that she had to leave the vehicle.”
And most seriously, “the order” given by the driver to that woman and her three children “was celebrated by some of the passengers who were traveling on the bus,” criticizes the sentence. The woman decided to get off the bus and once on the ground “she prepared to take a photograph of the vehicle’s license plate with her mobile phone.”
The defendant, who had already started, stopped the bus abruptly and also got out of the vehicle. He did so by uttering more shouts like: “whore”, “bitch”, “fucking Moors”, “go to your country”… at the same time that “he made a gesture of wanting to remove the veil from her head”.
His three children, the ruling continues, “reacted by standing next to their mother to protect her, so that the defendant, due to the anger that dominated him, grabbed their arms to push them away, causing superficial injuries.”
But this time there was no applause from third parties, as had happened on the bus when he expelled that family. Several passers-by confronted that bus driver to criticize his conduct. So he got back in the vehicle and resumed his route.
This conduct, the magistrates of the Third Section of the Hearing, authors of this ruling, caused in that passenger and her three children “a deep feeling of humiliation and debasement.”
The sentence emphasizes that the defendant repeated these insults and humiliations “during a period of time that exceeds that which could characterize a short-circuit reaction.” And he considers it especially serious that this driver uttered “such expressions while he aggressively tried to remove the veil from the complainant’s head, knowing that this garment is an essential symbol of North African culture, which he despises.”
For this reason, these magistrates consider that the proven facts constitute the crime described in the aforementioned article 510. 2. a of the Penal Code, since the action, the pronounced expressions, with reiteration and with the violent form used have ample capacity to injure the dignity of the person to whom they are addressed”
The sentence assesses, in depth, the conduct of the driver. “His patently derogatory character and the invitation to leave the country can only be explained from the denial of the right to the development of free personality, from the denial of the person and the condition of citizen, from an attitude of exclusive intolerance, and all of this addressed to a specific person (not to the Maghrebi ethnic group)”
The ruling understands the “affect” that these racist insults caused to that woman and her three children (the youngest now does not want to get on a red bus) and estimates that in this case “the reasons for discrimination based on belonging to a race or ethnicity”.
The magistrates recall, on the other hand, that the expression “Moor” has in Spain “a very clear meaning and we all know it. It has incorporated (connotation) the value of considering the Maghrebis as inferior people, for cultural and historical reasons, as well as a clear contempt and discredit”.
And he points out: “It is true that the expression can be pronounced without such a connotation, but said use requires a special nuance that is not perceived in the words of the accused.”
In addition to 6 months in prison, this driver of the Barcelona municipal bus fleet has been sentenced to a six-month fine, with a daily fee of 10 euros, to the accessory disqualification for suffrage while the sentence lasts; as well as to satisfy the procedural costs, including those caused by the private accusation.
The sentence also imposes on the defendant the penalty of special disqualification for educational profession or trade, in the teaching, sports and free time field, for a period of three years greater than the duration of the prison sentence.
It will also have to compensate this woman and her three children with more than 4,000 euros for the moral and physical damage caused.
