The trial begins against three Burgos neighbors for harassing a gypsy family that moved into their building. Burgos Criminal Court number 2 is holding a trial this Tuesday against three neighbors of a Burgos property who allegedly harassed a gypsy family, with four minors, shouting “shitty gypsies” or “sons of bitches” and Hanging discriminatory posters on the building’s portal and messages of the same tone on social networks, reports Ical.
The harassment denounced by the family includes a series of verbal insults, such as “shitty gypsies” or “sons of bitches”, and in writing, in the form of a letter in which the three defendants called them “savages”, according to sources. of the Gypsy Secretariat Foundation.
They are also accused of generating a hostile climate in the entire neighborhood against the family, since they posted a poster on the portal calling on the neighbors to go to their house to check the noise.
Similarly, one of the defendants published different messages on social networks in which she complained about the arrival of “problematic large families of Roma ethnicity”, a text that provoked anti-Gypsy hate messages from other users of said social networks. The Fundación Secretariado Gitano emphasizes that the three defendants are the only neighbors who complained of alleged uncivil behavior on the part of the gypsy family.
In fact, the municipal police, who will testify at the trial, appeared on several occasions before these women’s calls, without registering any infraction. In the same way, he explained that the “situation of harassment and insults” experienced by this family by the neighbors generated “strong anxiety and fear, affecting their security, tranquility and personal freedom”, which caused their change of home.
The Fundación Secretariado Gitano has denounced these facts before the Specialized Prosecutor for crimes and discrimination in Burgos for a crime of coercion provided for in article 172.1 of the Penal Code, which would concur with the aggravating circumstance of article 22.4 of the same, as one of the modifying circumstances of criminal responsibility, for having an anti-Gypsy motive.
In this sense, the lawyer of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano, Selene de la Fuente, has shown her confidence that “the trial that is being held today will culminate in a conviction, which will also recognize the nature of a hate crime, given account of the anti-Gypsy motivation of the accused”.
