Spain: Prosecutor proposes banning networks for those convicted of hate crimes

The prosecutor for hate crimes in Spain, Miguel Ángel Aguilar, has proposed reforming the penal code so that those convicted of committing hate crimes on social networks have to stay away from them for a time, as well as that all users have to be identified.

“Many times we encounter the difficulty that the investigation cannot prosper because we do not identify the author,” said the courtroom prosecutor of the Hate Crimes Unit of the State Attorney General’s Office in an interview with the SER chain replicated by the agency EFE.

Aguilar has warned that every day there are attacks on people in the streets for “this type of motivation” and has focused on the spread of racist insults at sporting events, as well as the false information that seek to “single out, stigmatize, migrants to awaken feeling of rejection” towards them.

In addition to his proposals, the prosecutor has requested the involvement of other measures to “educate, prevent” and also to combat hatred because he believes that it is dangerous to leave everything to the law.

In his opinion, the law “cannot limit what can be published and what cannot, it is dangerous for our democracy,” although he remembers that there are administrative and criminal limits.

It is important to highlight that this Tuesday the Spanish prosecutor’s office announced that it is studying the “false” and “hate” messages that circulate on social networks in which foreign people, especially minors, are generally criminalized after the murder last weekend of Mateo, an 11-year-old boy in Mocejón (Toledo).