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31
Cases of discrimination in the media
30.
National.
Internet.
Direct discrimination.
The following question appeared on the Yahoo! Answers page with
a comment, the aim of which was to contact other Roma studying to enter the national police force:
“Are there Roma police officers in Spain?
Hi, I’m Roma, I have a law degree and now I’m studying to become a national police inspector. And my
question is: are there Roma police officers in Spain? Thanks in advance.”
Although the question had no other purpose than to contact other Roma in this sector, the writer re-
ceived the following reply:
“I don’t know of anyone but there could be, but it seems unfair that junkies can become police.”
Another example of how the Roma community is associated with crime and drugs.
31.
National.
The media.
Direct discrimination.
”Summer holidays are over and hundreds of Gypsy children are
back to copper today.” [Translator’s note: in Spanish, “vuelta al cole” mean back to school after the summer
break. The Spanish word for copper is “cobre” making this a play on words given the similarity between “cole”
and “cobre”. ]
To laugh or not to laugh; that is the question posed by
El Mundo Today
, the popular satirical online newspaper.
As explained by one of its directors, there are no limits, but “the more controversial, sordid or delicate the issue
is, the more ingenious the humorist must be to achieve the objective”.
One of the most recent texts published on the website in response to “Hundreds of Gypsy children are back to
copper today” states as follows: “Neither the Fundación Secretariado Gitano nor the Union Romaní, two of the
most active organisations in defence of this ethnic minority, were at all happy about this post”.
The Department of Equality sent a complaint letter to this media requesting the removal of the article because
it created and reinforced the negative image of the Roma community as a whole (and specifically identified
children with theft and vandalism).
We received the following response:
“We would like to clarify two things in this regard:
- El Mundo Today is not part of the media as you affirm and its directors are not journalists. As indi-
cated in the legal notice available on the website itself, El Mundo Today includes satirical fictional texts
which, as such, employ caricature, exaggeration and stereotype with humorous intent. The purpose of
the website is entertainment and not education or information. The legal notice also points out that its
content targets adults and it is assumed that the latter possess the ability to contextualize and un-
derstand what they are reading (even though some, unfortunately, confuse satire with journalism and
fiction with reality).
- The author of the text that you refer to uses a simple play on words (replacing the word “cole”
[school] with the word “cobre” [copper]) and takes advantage of the similarity between these two
words to give visibility to the fact that you do not need to go to so-called underdeveloped countries
to find children who do not enjoy the right to go to school. You can find them right here in Spain. What
this satire actually does is draw attention to this issue through humour. The author in no way, shape or
form intended to make fun of those children. A less biased reading of the article would suffice to see
this; fortunately, this was the interpretation of the bulk of El Mundo Today’s readers. We understand
and respect that there are groups especially sensitive to certain issues, but we cannot accept that tho-
se groups attribute intentions to us that are simply not true, based on an interpretation that manipulates
the essential meaning of the text and its real context.
El Mundo Today has frequently come under pressure from different organisations that have threatened
us to get us to withdraw certain articles. Usually this pressure comes from commercial brand names. Be
this as it may, we are not willing to tolerate censorship, not only out of respect for our own freedom
of expression but out of respect for our readers who understand and share our understanding of satire.
Kind regards,
El Mundo Today
Tomorrow’s news.
[www.elmundotoday.com]”