Movement Against Intolerance extends complaint against the President of Catalonia on the basis of ethnic supremacy. The organization asks the public prosecutor for his interrogation.
Movement Against Intolerance has been learned about more articles written and spread in several media by the President of the Generalitat, Mr. Quim Torra. The organization put some articles at the disposal of the Public Prosecutor´s Supreme Justice Court Office of Catalonia. The new articles can be currently seen and read and in their content, there are some identity; ethnic and racial supremacy manifestations, legitimation of violent confrontation alluding to the memory of Badía brothers, referred to the Catalonian Republic back in the 1930’s.
These articles, written and published on the basis of hate speech, go against the International Convention of Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Spain has been adhered to since 13 September 1968. In which its 4th article says ‘All the countries condemn the propaganda and the organizations inspired by ideas or theories based on racial superiority or groups of people with a determined skin color or ethnic origin or who intend to justify or promote racial hate in any shape (…) moreover: ‘They will declare as punitive act, according to the law, all spreading of ideas based on racial superiority or racial hate, any incitement to racial discrimination as well as any violent action or incitement to commit such actions against any race or group of people with a different skin color or ethnic origin, and all assistance to racist activities, including their funding (…)’.
This evaluation made by Movement Against Intolerance is maintained by 10 articles written by Quim Torra, among a higher number of his written pieces with which we provided the Public Prosecutor´s Supreme Justice Court Office of Catalonia as an evidence. In addition, attached to the report is found a Law Basis where we included five sentences from the European Human Rights Court and three sentences from the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Spain, conveying that these articles maintain their presence on the Internet and they have not been deleted, therefore they might be an establishing fact for a crime against freedom and fundamental rights, categorized in section 510 of the Penal Code.
It is necessary to recall the definition of hate speech, given by the Ministers Council Committee of Europe in its resolution (20) in 1997,as that one that ‘encompasses all the speech forms that disseminate, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or any form of hate based on intolerance, including intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, immigrants and people of immigrant origin”. We understand that, the expressions shown in the messages are especially serious in this context in Catalonia, if an attempt of an illegal and one-sided borders modification happened and also due to the deep social and political confrontation going on, like the situations referred in the article “La llengua i les bèsties”, where he refers to Spaniards as: ‘Now you look at your country and you can talk again to beasts. But they are another kind of beasts. Ghoulish, vipers, hyenas. Beasts in a human shape that reveal hatred. Their hate is disturbed, nauseating, like moldy dentures, hate against everything the language (Catalan) represents (…), or in the article titled: ‘Els germans Badía, avui’ where he states: ‘I want the President of the Catalonian Republic here, by my side, in front of you. These young people need him here. Intransigent, optimistic, paramilitary, visionary, persistent, man of state, ferocious(…)
Consequently, Movement against Intolerance informed the Public Prosecutor´s Supreme Justice Court Office of Catalonia about these messages and all evidences needed so the investigation can proceed, as well as Quim Torra’s interrogation and, finally, we can determine all responsibilities in case they constitute a crime against fundamental rights and public freedom, also known as hate crimes.
