The Ministry of the Interior will intensify the monitoring carried out by the telematic crime brigades to monitor the hate speech that is launched on social networks against the LGTBI collective, as Fernando Grande-Marlaska announced this Wednesday to the Trans Platform Federation in a meeting.
“The minister is going to give a notice so that the monitoring carried out by the Police’s telematic crime brigades increases and there is more surveillance on Twitter,” the president of the Trans Platform Federation, Mar Cambrollé, told the media after the meeting with Marlaska, whom he has seen as “very concerned” and “receptive”.
For his part, Marlaska has reiterated the “involvement” of his department in the prosecution of hate crimes and has encouraged “reporting any situation of harassment”, according to a statement from the ministry, which has also met with the Observatori Contra l ‘Homophobia of Catalonia and the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans, Bisexuals and Intersexuals (FELGTBI).
In their respective meetings, these organizations have conveyed to Marlaska their concern about the spread of hate speech and the increase in attacks against LGTBI people, a particularly worrying trend on social networks.
Some 231,000 transphobic tweets were recorded on Twitter alone between 2021 and 2022, according to Cambrollé, who assures that “this figure has increased by more than 20% in 2023” and asks Interior to “send a strong message to Twitter so that it complies within the framework of the Constitution”.
“We are sending the message that there is an open bar to attack trans people, there is a free hunting ground,” lamented Cambrollé, who has claimed that “Twitter has to understand that hate cannot be sold in Spain.”
For its part, the FELGTBI has demanded from Marlaska a “deep methodological review of the protocols” so that they “collect hate crimes in a more reliable manner”, as well as training in diversity of police forces and the creation of special units to Address incidents related to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
“Today, only two out of ten acts of hate are reported because fear has entered the collective and LGTBI people fear that they will not be treated correctly if they go to the police station,” said the president of the Federation, Uge Sangil.
Eugeni Rodríguez, director of the Observatori Contra l’Homofobia, has advanced that, to prevent future attacks, Marlaska has also announced the signing of an agreement with the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces so that the local police are coordinated with the rest of the forces and Security forces.
With this, Interior seeks to improve the identification, collection and codification of these incidents, crimes and discriminatory behaviors to unify the data registered by the different police forces.
Likewise, the National Board against hate crimes will meet on July 3 to analyze the second plan against this type of crime launched by Interior.
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