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Cases of discrimination in other areas
15.
Asturias.
Others.
Direct discrimination.
A Roma man who makes his living collecting scrap metal went by the
FSG office in Aviles to report that he had been fined by the Civil Guard. The sanction slip said:
““While on patrol duty we observed a Citroen van (Jumper model) of the type typically used by Roma
to collect junk.”
The Equality Department wrote to the Government Delegation of Asturias expressing our concern, not for the
fine which appeared justified judging from the documentation, but for the clearly discriminatory expressions
appearing on the incident report making reference to the ethnic background of a person.
16.
Asturias.
Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
The territorial director of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano in
Asturias received a call from a journalist from Aviles who told him that the musical “Thumbelina” done by
Carver Espectaculos y Artes Escénicas and performed at the Niemeyer Cultural Centre Auditorium made
direct discriminatory allusions to the Roma community and the journalist had gathered complaints from
several spectators.
The adaptation of the story by Hans Christian Andersen transformed the Toad family in the story to a Roma
family and used all of the stereotypes to get a cheap laugh with no story line and employed disparaging expres-
sions against the Roma community constituting an act of discrimination.
The Foundation’s territorial director mentioned this situation to the newspaper La Nueva España criticising the
work and expressing his regret that a play for children would stoop so low as to profit from these discriminatory
stereotypes.
The Foundation also received a call from a woman from Oviedo expressing her concern. This woman mentioned
that she sent an email to the theatre company criticising this adaptation of Thumbelina.
The Equality Department wrote to the producer but received no response.
17.
Catalonia.
Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
A Roma youngster reported what happened to him at a clothing
store where he had an interview to do sales training. He was looking at clothes and noticed that the cashier said
something to the security guard who stopped him at the door and wanted to frisk him.
When he refused, he was told he had to go with him to a private office. He refused that as well and then lifted
his shirt to show that he was not hiding anything.
He then left the shop without any further discussion.
18.
Sabadell.
Dignity.
Hate speech.
The ACCEDER office in Sabadell organised a certificate course in basic res-
taurant and bar operations and to that end signed a collaboration agreement with SOC (Employment Service of
Catalonia).
As a general rule, the SOC announces these training sessions taking place in Catalonia on their web page and this
was the case with our training session. People interested in the training called the Sabadell Economic Promotion
Service for information as this was the institution in charge of providing the training.
A girl called expressing interest in the training. A member of the staff took the call and told her that the training
session had already begun and that, in any case, priority was given to Roma participants since the Fundación
Secretariado Gitano was co-founder and co-organiser.