The Barcelona Prosecutor's Office has entrusted the new unit for crimes against vulnerable groups, where the prosecutors handling the Guardia Urbana crime and the Dani Alves case work, with opening an investigation following complaints against Ramon Flecha, emeritus professor at the University of Barcelona. This decision comes after the university launched an internal investigation following complaints of sexual harassment, psychological coercion, mistreatment, and exploitation linked to the professor and his research group, CREA. will send a preliminary report to the Prosecutor's OfficeAccording to a statement released by the Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor's Office, the unit investigating the case is the "Specialized Section for Violent Crimes against Children and Adolescents, as well as other vulnerable groups and complex criminal profiles." Prosecutors Félix Martín and Elisabeth Jiménez work in this section, as has been reported. The Vanguard And ARA has been able to confirm this. Martín is president of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors and has handled high-profile cases such as the Urban Guard murder case, in which the municipal police officers Rosa Peral and Albert López received a resounding sentence for the murder of a colleague. Jiménez brought the sexual assault complaint against footballer Dani Alves, who was initially convicted, although the High Court of Justice of Catalonia overturned the conviction. He ended up overturning the sentenceThe section specializing in crimes against vulnerable groups will work with a team from the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), including members of the Sexual Assault Unit and agents from the Central Area of ​​Analysis and Intelligence Development, who have experience investigating cult-like organizations. The University of Barcelona sent the information it had gathered to the Public Prosecutor's Office even though its internal investigation was not yet complete. However, the preliminary report already pointed to the existence of a "high-control coercive group." Specifically, sixteen people had reported the group for having sexual relations "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality" with "students, interns, doctoral candidates, or subordinates." Furthermore, the UB also He provisionally suspended emeritus professor Ramon Flecha from his dutiesAnother honorary professor and two other professors he did not identify. He announced that he would join the case as a private prosecutor if the Public Prosecutor's Office ultimately decides to file a complaint or lawsuit.

The CREA research group, which has been questioned for years by an alleged case of sexual harassment and abuse of power by its founder, emeritus professor Ramón FlechaThe research group has decided to end its activities. The group announced its dissolution yesterday in a statement released on social media, the day after the University of Barcelona (UB) again referred the alleged harassment by Flecha and others linked to the research network to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Despite this announcement, the group does not admit to any accusations in its statement. In fact, they explicitly state that they feel they are victims of "persecution." The researchers argue that the group is dissolving because it "has been subjected to systematic and continuous harassment" and that those who have remained involved have suffered "persistent discrimination" in public competitions and academic appointments as "punishment" for their work.

The CREA scandal is not new to the ARA newspaper: we have been following it for nine years. Since June 2016, when we published the article "A research group at the University of Barcelona has been denounced, accused of acting like a cult."We have reported on all the latest developments in a case that persistently calls into question the effectiveness of university protocols and control mechanisms, as well as the judicial system itself.

The University of Barcelona has provisionally suspended from his duties the emeritus professor of the University of Barcelona Ramon Flecha, recently accused of having sexual relations "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality" with "students, interns, doctoral students, or subordinates." This was announced in a press release, which also stated that it will launch an internal investigation, led by a "commission of experts" made up of three specialists "with specific training in gender-based violence and institutional harassment." At least two of them will be women.

The Governmenthas suspended "as a precautionary measure"The Career of Excellence award granted this week, within the framework of the Serra Húnter program, to Marta Soler, professor of sociology at the University of Barcelona (UB). Soler is the director of CREA, a research group controversial due to allegations by former members who in 2004 and 2016They declared that it was an abusive group–complaints that endedarchiving– and because its founder, also professor Ramon Flecha, has recently been accused in a letter to the rectorate ofhaving sex "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality"with "students, fellows, doctoral students, or subordinates."

A letter from a group of fourteen people sent to the rector of the University of Barcelona, ​​​​Joan Guardia, denounces the professor – now emeritus – Ramon Flecha to have sexual relations "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality" with "students, interns, doctoral students or subordinates", according to a joint publication by RTVE Noticias, Ràdio 4, Eldiario.es and InfoLibre. This same professor has been legally pursuing the newspaper ARA for five years for having published, in 2016, that his research group, CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All), had been denounced, accusing it of acting like a cult, a complaint that was eventually shelved after a year.