The Barcelona City Council has filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office for alleged hate crime against the others of a "viral" message on social networks according to which 1.600 fraudulent registrations were detected in a house (actually 5 people lived) who tried to collect social aid and vote in municipal elections, reported the City Council.
The message said: “New scandal of the mayoress of Barcelona and her government team. So soon the Civil Guard put a cannon in the Horta-Guinardó area because 1.600 soldiers from the Maghreb were in that cannon, 1.600 soldiers in a single shot!!!”.
Attention. The #FakeNews will count the registration of 1600 Maghrebis for committing fraud to the own elections in BCN. Hello, there is a National Police Inspector and a Civil Guard, and a group of automated bots.
⭕️ Hem presentat denounces Fiscalia Delictes d'Odi. ho explain. https://t.co/bcdhEkzd79
— Marc Serra Solé (@MarcSerraSole) March 19, 2023
In statements to journalists, the Councilor for Citizenship Rights, Marc Serra, said that this information has been verified with the Civil Guard and other police forces and with the municipal Register and it has been determined that this detection "never occurred". nor is there any address with 1.600 people registered in Barcelona.
"This is not an innocent lie, it is not an isolated incident, but rather an organized operation to sow an image of doubt in the face of the upcoming municipal elections and attack the very group of Maghrebi people," he added.
For him, these types of messages seek to "put the flame on the wick of racism and, through this feeling of hatred, achieve virality", and he has said that the Barcelona City Council is concerned about how this can affect the migrant population from the city.
The document presented to the Prosecutor's Office through the Barcelona Office for Non-Discrimination and consulted by Ep, found that the consistory has been able to verify that the message has been widely disseminated on social networks by WhatsApp, Twitter and others, "obtaining dozens of thousands of views and so many other shares”.
In addition, they denounce that, "apart from the undoubted slanderous content towards the mayoress of Barcelona" -attributed the fraud to Ada Colau and her government team-, the message represents an incitement to hatred, resentment and animosity towards the Maghreb community, according to the text.
The City Council also alleges that the authors, among whom they say there are lawyers and psychologists, "were known of the absolute falsehood of the message due to its total implausibility". »If Ada Colau wins the elections, you are already thinking about donating, the votes have come out«, the message added, another falsehood in that Moroccan citizens cannot vote in municipal elections since there is no reciprocity agreement with this country.
He also identified with Twitter messages that he was reproducing the text, behind whom there is supposedly a civil guard and a police inspector, and he concludes that "these facts cannot be protected by the right to freedom of expression."
