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Cases of discrimination in other areas
10.
Jaen.
Hate crimes and incitement to violence.
Direct discrimination.
An incident occurred on 19 August in
Castellar (Jaen) resulting in material damages and three people charged with a crime. The case was processed
through a swift hearing procedure. The incidents were followed by unauthorised demonstrations by the towns-
people organised by mobile telephone and social networks demanding that several Roma families leave the town
and screaming things such as: “Gypsy shit, get out of our town, sons of bitches, get out of Castellar, we’re going
to burn your houses to the ground, no Gypsies in our town.”
The families temporarily left their homes and later some members returned. One of the family’s homes was
partially burned and some of those family members were being harassed by neighbours. More demonstrations
against Roma families living in the town took place later that week.
In light of this serious situation, the Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) asked the public authorities to step in
to keep the townspeople from attacking and persecuting Roma families and burning their homes. It is the duty of
the police and justice system to protect all citizens and to take forceful action against any sort of violent attack.
The Government Delegation took appropriate action identifying some of the demonstrators and initiating sev-
eral administrative enquiries. In light of this serious situation and the defencelessness of the Roma families under
attack, the Fundación Secretariado Gitano and other NGO members of the State Council of the Roma People
decided to become involved as a civil party to the legal proceedings as they believed that these acts consti-
tuted incitement to hatred and other crimes.
The status of the proceeding is as follows: the local criminal court issued an order to move forward with the
proceeding as it considered that there was sufficient evidence that crimes had been committed. An appeal was
filed against that decision before the Provincial Court of Jaen and we are sad to say that the result was an order
for provisional dismissal of the case which we feel is completely unfair and shows that the judicial system is
indifferent to anti-Gypsyism. We will appeal this decision.