Archived the complaint against Pilar Rahola for complicity with the genocide in Gaza

BarcelonaThe complaint against Pilar Rahola for her statements in favor of Israel and her actions in Palestine will not proceed. The Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor's Office has decided to archive it following the pre-trial proceedings it ordered last April 13. The complaint, filed by two militants of the Socialist Youth Organization (OJS), was for crimes of incitement to hatred and complicity in the genocide in Gaza, but the public prosecutor considers that there is not enough evidence to continue investigating the journalist. The decision is not subject to appeal, according to the resolution dated this Monday to which ARA has had access.

"In the case at hand, no call for acts against the Palestinian population is found among the denounced expressions," concludes the Prosecutor's Office after the preliminary investigation commissioned to the Mossos' Central Unit for Hate and Discrimination Crimes. "There is no evidence that she urges or encourages the commission of discriminatory, and even less so, violent acts," it adds regarding the possibility of a hate speech crime.

The complainants had also provided public and media positions of Rahola in which—they claimed—she had "publicly denied, trivialized, and justified" the genocide. On this point, however, the public prosecutor notes that, despite the systematic killings and the denunciations by governments and international organizations—including the United Nations—, "there is no record that any body with jurisdiction to do so has declared the existence of a genocide that the complainants assert Mrs. Rahola denies".

That is to say, according to the Prosecutor's Office document, the fact that no court has yet ruled that what Israel is doing against the Palestinian population is a genocide, constitutes an "insurmountable obstacle" to attribute to the journalist the crime of denial, trivialization or glorification of a genocide, punishable under the Penal Code with prison sentences of between one and four years.

Rahola reaffirms her stance on Israel's "right to defense"

In a statement released to the media by her defense, Rahola herself celebrates the dismissal and ensures that it was the outcome she expected because the complaint, in her view, "had no legal basis." "It responded to the desire to censor free opinion, neutralize dissent, and impose single-minded thinking," she states.

In this sense, the writer also reaffirms her "positions" on "the existence and the right to self-defense of Israel." A right to defense that, for three years, has been the argument used by Tel Aviv to justify its bombings and massacres in Gaza. "The Prosecutor's Office's final filing proves that I exercise this free thought within democratic parameters and that the law protects me," she concludes.

The two OJS militants filed the complaint against her in February, after Rahola had reported them for having thrown red paint at her during an event in La Garriga, a case that is currently in the investigation phase. In the complaint, they pointed out that Rahola's interventions regarding what is happening in Gaza are not "disinterested" —they pointed to "significant economic benefits and recognition" received from Israel and Zionist entities—and that they could not be protected under the exercise of freedom of expression either. Assertions that the Prosecutor's Office did not share.