Arrested a man for inciting hatred against migrants in Facebook

The Guardia Civil in Pontevedra has arrested a man of 63 years accused by the Prosecution of having spread xenophobic messages against migrants across your profile on Facebook and without any type of restrictions on the part of the social network, as reported on Thursday sources from the Armed Institute.

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The web user, a neighbor of the ria of Arousa, it had made tens of publications of violent content to incite explicitly to the hate and to use violence against immigrants. “All of these should by now be expelled from the first time or, if not, grind them to a pulp, what the fuck comes to claim this garbage to Spain”, is one of the messages that the man spread on Facebook and which are the subject of judicial investigation.

through the research carried out jointly by the groups of information of the headquarters of the Civil Guard of Navarra and Pontevedra, launched the operation Squidward to identify the man. Then the agents found that the arrested had published dozens of xenophobic messages without any type of restriction on the social network Facebook.

In his profile, the man had more than 375 followers, so that the researchers determined that the messages of incitement to hatred, violence and discrimination published “have been able to reach a large number of users of this social network,” according to the written police.

The research has been coordinated by the public prosecutor in Jojobet charge of these cases in the province of Pontevedra, which has judicializado the facts to instruct the corresponding criminal proceedings. After being identified as the administrator of the profile, the detainee has been accused as the alleged perpetrator of a crime "committed with occasion of the exercise of the fundamental rights and public freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution”, according to details of the Civil Guard.

The detainee has been placed at the disposal of the magistrate of the court of instruction no. 1 of Vilagarcía de Arousa, after take her statement has decreed their release on bail with charges pending the Prosecutor's office of Pontevedra present their indictment.

According to the annual report of the office of the Prosecutor, in 2017 opened 101 investigations by this type criminal offense of incitement to hatred which resulted in fourteen indictments for this type of conduct and were handed down 29 judgments. The Government is considering a reform of the Penal Code for the crime set out in article 510, whose conduct is more serious is the provocation to hatred, violence or discrimination. The majority of these acts are committed through social networks. The proposal would modify the sentences of between one and four years of prison for those who promote hatred publicly or violence against a person or a group for reasons that are racist, anti-semitic, religious, or other circumstance.

The Popular Party amended this article during the first term of former president Mariano Rajoy to toughen penalties for hate crimes committed through the Internet. A change that was made with the argument that social networks promote the dissemination of these offences and, with it, the damage caused. After this change, the minimum punishment provided in the law when the facts are carried out through a medium of social communication is of two and a half years in prison.