The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of a fine of 720 euros to a man for publishing “denigrant” tweets aimed at an eight -year -old boy, Adrián Hinojosa, sick with cancer and a fan of bulls – made in 2017 – who had assisted a bullfighting festival in Valencia in 2016 to raise funds for the foundation of Child Oncohematology.
The Criminal Chamber has rejected the appeal for the sentence against the sentence of the Valencia Court that revoked the acquittal issued by a criminal court of that same city. In addition to the fine, he was sentenced to the payment of compensation of 3,000 euros to the legal representative of the minor for the damages and moral damages caused. Next to him, two other people were convicted of publishing comments on social networks in which the child’s death came to be desired. Both did not turn.
The Chamber considers that messages are of sufficient gravity and cannot be protected by the right to freedom of expression. The magistrates say that the expressions he pronounced, “aimed at an 8 -year -old boy, including one of such cruelty, for his state of health, in which he says that his life cares about two balls, are, objectively, of sufficient gravity, that if, in themselves, they cannot be protected in an unlimited right to freedom of expression, with more reason if we attend to the circumstances of the case.”
And he continues: “When the vulnerability of own due to age, it is increased by the serious disease he suffered, and by the mere fact of enjoying one of the few joys that his short life could offer him.” Therefore, they consider that expressions are “objectively degrading, susceptible to severely undermining anyone’s moral integrity, much more if it is an 8 -year -old child, with such very serious disease as a cancer, which, today, has died, made consciously and voluntarily.”