Public Prosecutor's Office investigates threats against family who asked for classes in Spanish

The Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Barcelona has decided to investigate the offensive and threatening messages received through social networks by the family of the five-year-old boy who asked for more classes in Spanish at the Escola Turó del Drac in Canet de Mar (Maresme). As advanced by El Mundo and confirmed by ACN, the association Hablamos Español and Vox initiated a lawsuit, and the Prosecutor's Office wants to check whether they constitute a crime of incitement to hatred or discrimination.

The school, obeying the order of Catalonia's High Court began to teach 25% of classes in Spanish to a group of five-year-olds, after a single family demanded it through the courts. When the judge's resolution was made public last Friday, a great political and media uproar was created, and messages appeared asking, for example, to "throw stones at the [child's] house" or to "isolate" the child at school.

Faced with these comments, the High Court has also made a move and has ordered the Ministry of Education and the school board to adopt "the necessary measures to preserve the protection and privacy" of the family who took the school to court, as the court considers that they are responsible for preserving "the normal and peaceful coexistence of the educational environment".

From the Escola Turó del Drac, both teachers and the parent association have worked from the outset to prevent the controversy from reaching the classroom. In fact, this afternoon a rally in rejection of the court's imposition was to be held outside the school, but parents asked to move it to another space to avoid further straining the school atmosphere.

Catalan Education minister Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray visited yesterday Turó del Drac and admitted that the High Court ruling is addressed directly at the school and, therefore, the Department of Education cannot intervene. "We can only accompany and protect the school board in applying precautionary measures," he said.

The family asked for half of classes to be taught in Spanish and the court, while it analyses the case, ruled that 25% of hours be taught in this language as a preventive measure.