Annual Report Discrimination 2015

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Cases of discrimination in the media
46. National. Press. Direct discrimination. The online newspaper Laverdadonline.com published an article entitled
“Gypsies sold him a stolen car and when he tried to get his money back they beat him up.” The man was conned
by two members of this community who sold him a hijacked vehicle.”
Mention of ethnicity is irrelevant to the story but tarnishes the image of the Roma community in general.
The Department sent a message to the web page administrator but has received no response.
47. National. Press. Direct discrimination. The alert service received the link to a story published on www.
hispanidad.com in which the Spanish government minister, Miguel Arias Cañete, made the following comparison
when referring to Spain’s influence in Europe:
“Spain has less of a voice in Europe than a Gypsy in the courtroom.”
It goes without saying that this comparison has negative and damaging connotations insofar as it insinuates
that Roma people have nothing to say to defend themselves in a court of law or that no one is willing to listen
to them.
48. National. Internet. Direct discrimination. A YouTube channel called “Race war” has a collection of videos
featuring confrontations between people of different ethnic origins. Some of the videos explicitly mention that
the characters are Roma.
We filed a complaint about this YouTube channel but have received no positive response and the videos are
still available.
We believe that the dissemination of this sort of audiovisual material does serious damage to the image of
the Roma community as it associates the latter with acts of aggression and violence. It is also distressing that
extreme right-wing groups or neo-Nazis (such as the ones behind this YouTube channel) are able to deliberately
propagate stereotypes and hatred against the Roma people as this is premeditated hate speech and not some
mistake made by a media outlet.
49. National. Internet. Incitement to hatred against the Roma community. The FSG received an email message
which we classified as incitement to hatred against the Roma community;
Message: “You Gypsies are shameless. We’ll even up the score sooner or later. You’ve been in our face,
you’ve murdered people and filled Spain with drugs and dangerous traffickers. And you will pay for
your deeds and the evil eye that you cast on us. You’ve been warned. We’re coming for you!”
50. National. Press. Direct discrimination. The online magazine
rities/ 2014-09-28/la-boda-gitana-de-george-clooney_217235/ published a report on George Clooney’s wed-
ding under the following headline: “George Clooney’s Gypsy wedding concluded on Monday” (allusion to the du-
ration of the wedding, comparing it to stereotyped
Roma weddings). The article went on to say::
CASE 50