Spain: first prison sentence for spreading ‘fake news’ on Twitter about migrant minors

A civil guard who published a video on Twitter accusing migrant minors of an alleged attack in a Catalan town, which actually occurred in China, accepted a 15-month prison sentence in one of the first convictions for spreading false news against a group in Spain.

The defense of the accused and the Prosecutor’s Office -which initially requested two years in prison- reached an agreement in accordance this Tuesday shortly after the trial began in the Court of Barcelonafor which the defendant, who acts as civil guard in Cataloniaaccepted a He is sentenced to 15 months in prison and a fine of 1,620 euros ($1,619).

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Now the court must decide in its sentence whether to suspend the defendant’s imprisonment, which is usually common in sentences of less than two years for people without a record, provided that he does not commit a crime again, keep all your discriminatory profiles on Twitter closed and do not open any new ones.

After the trial, the Civil Guard opened a disciplinary file to the agent, informed sources of the body.

The events date back to July 2019, when the defendantwhich he had in his social network account multiple racist and xenophobic messagesaccording to the Prosecutor’s Office, published a tweet with a 45-second video where a man was seen brutally assaulting a woman until she was unconscious and trying to take her clothes off.

In the accompanying text, the accused stated: “Here you have the Moroccan MENA from Canet de Mar, to those we are going to give the little payment [ndlr.: ayudas sociales] until the age of 23”, ensuring that the alleged aggressor also raped the victim and that this information did not appear in the media.

MENA is the acronym for “Unaccompanied Foreign Minor”used to refer to minor immigrants who arrive alone in Spain.

But the video – which was viewed 21,900 times – did not correspond to any attack that occurred in this town on the Catalan coast, but to some events recorded in China and that had nothing to do with Canet de Mar.

“With the dissemination of the aforementioned text and the shocking video, the defendant intended, with manifest contempt for the truth and massively and indiscriminately among all potential users of the social network Twitter, to associate the content of the video with an alleged violation that occurred in the town of Canet de Marconsidered the Prosecutor’s Office, which accuses him of a crime against fundamental rights.

“All this in order to globally and unfairly defame unaccompanied minors from other countries,” he added.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.