A worker from a services company at Palma de Mallorca airport faces a fine of up to €200,000 for addressing a Civil Guard agent in Catalan when passing through an security point. The Civil Guard accuses her of endangering air safety, all because of a language conflict. According to the complaint filed by the employee, the agent said: "You speak to the authorities in Spanish".
According to the Diario de Mallorca, the event took place a month ago while the woman was going to work. Going through the security check, the metal detector went off because it was more sensitive than usual. After being searched by airport security, she went to work. A while later, whilst she was in a meeting, two Civil Guard agents appeared and asked her to go through security again. She agreed and went through without any problems.
When she said goodbye, she did it in Catalan, thanking the agents for their care. According to her report, one of the agents then got angry and told her "either you speak Spanish or you don't go in". The woman replied that she had the right to speak in whichever language she wished, but the Civil Guard refused her entry and accused her of having not gone through security, for which she was charged with allegedly having put airport security at risk. The worker has since filed a complaint against the agent.
Three weeks later, the Civil Guard agent handed her the official complaint submitted to the State agency for air safety -Agència Estatal de Seguretat Aèria- and the worker now faces a substancial sanction.
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The Spanish government's delegation to the Balearic Islands has said that the complaint against the agent has been filed. They have also said that the Civil Guard has not proposed any sanction against the woman and that, therefore, they cannot make a statement giving their position on this issue. The worker's complaint was for a crime of hatred and linguistic discrimination and, according to sources close to her, it will be appealed.
The political party Més per Mallorca has already announced that it will submit a motion to the Parliament for it to make a statement and demand an explanation from the Spanish government's delegation. The party spokesman, Miquel Ensenyat, warned that this is a clear "linguistic discrimination towards one of our official languages and they want to impose a totally inexplicable penalty".
This is not the first time that such an incident has happened in the Balearic Islands. In fact, it's one of the reasons for a protest that has been called by the Sovereign Assembly of Mallorca (ASM) and other bodies for Wednesday 7th August, in front of the Royal Palace, coinciding with a visit by king Felipe.