The State attorney general, María José Segarra, has called on Monday a “reflection quiet” about hate crime to give them a criminal law response “proportionate, dissuasive and justice”. Her department’s latest circular letter —a writing that sets performance criteria for binding— that will be sent to all prosecutors ‘ offices at the beginning of 2019, in order to unify the action of the public ministry in the face of this crime. The idea, according to sources in fiscal, is that the charges conform to the criteria established by the Strasbourg Court in several judgments in which it has condemned Spain for an application “disproportionate” to the crime.
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The need to open up a reflection to propose changes on hate crimes is one of the priorities which had been raised by Segarra since he came to office in July. The latest annual report of the office of the Prosecutor, filed in September, he called for to find alternative penalties to imprisonment in cases of hate crimes committed through the Internet, a proposal that the Government has shown itself willing to study though, for now, has not given any step in that direction.
Segarra insisted on Monday the need to “reflect” on this crime. And did so prior to the opening of a conference in Madrid of specialists on hate crimes and almost at the same time that the comedian Dani Mateo was brought in a court of law as investigated by this crime (in addition to the outrage to the flag) for a gag that sounded like the nose with the Spanish flag.
The hate crime, set out in article 510 of the Criminal Code, considered in its most severe form sentences of between one and four years in prison for anyone who promotes hatred or violence against a person or a group for reasons that are racist, anti-semitic, religious, or other circumstance. Segarra warned that Deneme Bonusu Veren Siteler these crimes have increased in recent years, especially through social networks, and that both victims and perpetrators are often minors.
The Prosecution believes that you should not lower the guard against these behaviors, but, in turn, considers that in some cases, it is by applying “disproportionate”. In their statements Monday, Segarra admitted that the public ministry is not always is showing “unit of action”, a problem that is intended to settle with the circular that his department expects to have ready in the first quarter of 2019 and which will be sent to all prosecutor offices.
The idea, according to sources in fiscal, is that the performance of the public ministry to act in accordance with the criteria set out by the European Court of Human Rights in several judgments in which it has condemned Spain for the application “disproportionate” to the crime of hate. The last of these decisions, rendered in march last, urged to compensate two pro-independence protesters in catalonia in 2007 burned a picture of the Kings during a protest antimonárquica in Girona. In the judgment, the court based in Strasbourg warned that the freedom of expression “extends to information and ideas that offend, clash or annoy” and form part of the conditions of “pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no democratic society.”
Convictions of Strasbourg Arguments similar had employed Strasbourg in 2011 for condemning Spain for violating the freedom of expression of the leading nationalist Arnaldo Otegi, to which the Supreme Court had condemned in 2005 for calling the King the “head of the torturers”. The european Court admitted that the expressions of Indemnity could be considered as a language as “provocative” and “hostile” toward the monarchy but neither they urged the use of violence or constituted a “hate speech”.
The last memory of the State Attorney General’s office already alluded to the fact that these sentences should serve to “clarify concepts”. “But at the moment, the only thing they do is increase the controversy”, included the text. A large part of the problem, in the opinion of the public prosecutor’s office, arises from the modification made by the PP in 2015 to the Criminal Code to expand the conduct indictable as a crime of hatred and harden the penalties of the crimes committed through the Internet. This modification, according to Segarra, has not resulted in the creation of a category unique to hate crimes”, but these are still “scattered” by the Criminal Code, which complicates the actions of the prosecutors. “We must look for solutions to your interpretation,” has claimed Segarra.
The Congress dealt with a reform of the Penal Code raised by United we Can to protect the freedom of expression. The text, which calls for the decriminalization of libel to the Crown or the offenses to religious feelings, coincides with the office of the Prosecutor to consider “ambiguous” in the article 510 of the Criminal Code, and ask that the charges conform to the european jurisprudence to apply to this crime.
