Joint complaint against the Girona channel that links immigration with crime
The Girona City Council has also brought the statements of Travis Agustín Gómez to the Prosecutor's Office, who in a video said he was going out to "hunt Moors"
GironaJoint front of entities, unions and parties in Girona against the manager of the Instagram account Girona Perduda, which with more than 30,000 followers has become since the start of the school year a channel for citizen discontent, on aspects such as cleanliness and safety in the streets, linking immigration and crime with a mixture of photos, videos and true data, others exaggerated, disinformation and fake news. Another example of allegedly non-partisan accounts that serve the far-right to polarize public opinion, according to the assessment of experts consulted by ARA, which in December uncovered the links between the administrator of Girona Perduda and Vox.
About thirty social, trade union, neighborhood and cultural entities, as well as Guanyem, the CUP, Comuns, the PSC and ERC, have filed a complaint this Tuesday for incitement to hatred against Travis Agustín Gómez, and against a second unidentified person, responsible for the account Dave Explora. Upon learning of the news, the Girona City Council also reported that it filed a complaint a few weeks ago for the same act against the Instagram profile, although it has not disclosed the details.
The complaint from the entities, filed with the Provincial Prosecutor's Office for Hate Crimes of Girona, concerns the 42-second video published on April 3rd on Instagram, recorded in Plaça Independència in Girona, in which Agustín Gómez stated that when he was bored he went out to "hunt Moors" because the majority were delinquents. The other defendant agreed with the manager of Girona Perduda and confirmed the relationship between the North African population and crime.
At a press conference in front of the Palace of Justice, under a banner that read "Let's stop hate speech and fascism," it was demanded that "this cannot stand." "The crime is more serious if it turns out to be on social media, and especially because these networks are very powerful," said Cristina Arana, a member of Ateneu 24 de Juny, in her capacity as spokesperson. Therefore, the complaint asks the Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation against the two influencers for a crime punishable by prison sentences of up to four years.
The video in question, in fact, was sufficient reason for the Girona Perduda account to be suspended for a few hours after receiving several complaints on the social network, but Instagram eventually recovered it. The entities point out that delinquency "is a structural problem caused by many different factors and cannot be linked to a specific cultural origin", and affirm that the expression "hunting Moors" is "denigrating and criminal" because it implies a "generic call to exercise violence against the Maghrebi population". Furthermore, they emphasize that this video has had repercussions on social networks and has been shared numerous times, which amplifies the "racist" discourse.
Other cases
The complaint about the video of April 3, according to the organizations, "is not an isolated case", but what they consider an "escalation of a discourse sustained over time that aims to criminalize the migrant population, especially those of Maghrebi and sub-Saharan origin". In their opinion, the fact that the video was shared 1,282 times and received 1,875 "Likes" justifies the Prosecutor's Office opening an investigation. If it were dismissed, there is the possibility of studying the presentation of a joint lawsuit.
During the press conference, "attacks" against the Ateneu Popular Salvadora Català and the Ateneu 24 de Juny were also denounced. Specifically, they explained that stickers and posters were attached to them and they were spray-painted with Vox and Falange symbols after Agustín Gómez pointed out the former in a video, which for these organizations "demonstrates an unequivocal relationship between Girona Perduda and the far-right".
Finally, they consider that in recent years there has been a "progressive normalization of fascism and Islamophobia at the hands of parties like Vox and Aliança Catalana and far-right agitators", with the "contamination of public opinion with hate speech towards the migrant population, making them responsible for problems that actually have a complex and structural origin".