The hoax of the origin of the Manresa crime and the debate on police transparency

In the Manresa crime, Aliança Catalana and Vox – with the acquiescence of Junts – poured the gasoline of hatred: “They are Maghreb menas.” During a day that seemed long, on Tuesday, that was the story. The first one that prevailed. The one who ran through the networks, the one who settled in the conversations, the one who interpreted the senseless murder of a resident of Castellnou del Bages, which occurred on a Monday of the festival.

Only it wasn't true. The Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, had to come out to deny it. That happened on Wednesday. The minors arrested for the fatal stabbing of Carles Vilajosana, 45, “were born in Catalonia,” he said bluntly.

By then it was too late, the hoax had already done its job: it had found culprits before facts, very serious in this case, and had placed the origin before the crime.

On Thursday, Mayka Navarro put the context of the event in her chronicle published in this newspaper. The key to everything: truth and context. Mayka said that the minor who supposedly stabbed Carles is 16 years old, the son of Moroccan parents and has been living on the streets since he was 12, entering and leaving centers. He and the other detainee, 15 years old, son of Spanish parents, have accumulated a criminal record that is too long for their young age.

Both, born in Manresa.

In November of last year, the Ertzaintza modified a criterion that it had maintained for decades and began to report on the origin of the detainees. The Basque Government and the PNV, leading the Security Ministry, defended this measure at that time for the sake of transparency and to combat hoaxes and the dissemination of biased data, bait for ultra speeches.

In light of the Manresa case, the Basques' decision does not seem so crazy. I wonder if offering all the information from the beginning would have served to deflate the hatred that was already circulating without obvious restraint. Aliança Catalana and Vox did not have time to light up the street shouting “Hasta los cojones!”

Crimes have no nationality, race or religion. Behind every racist accusation there is, too often, a socioeconomic issue: poverty and exclusion. And this can only be attacked with a response from the welfare state, which today is very neglected.

These are two guiding principles.

But what if hiding the nationality of criminals acts as a boomerang and further stigmatizes? The age, gender and place of residence of those who commit a crime are now reported. Why should the origin be the only data that disappears? Institutional silence does not eliminate curiosity or change the facts: it simply leaves the story in the hands of others with many more prejudices and no interest in the context.

With the data in hand, all the cards are on the table and you can start making the right decisions to right a situation. A mature democracy should speak to its citizens as the adults they are and not hide information from them as if they were children to be protected from reality.