The Councilor for Citizen Security of the Dénia City Council, Javier Scotto, attended the 8th International Conference “Security, Democracy & Cities” organized by the European Forum on Urban Security (EFUS) from March 20 to 22 in Brussels.
Scotto has been invited to participate as a speaker in a round table on discriminatory violence held yesterday afternoon, in which the councilor explained the types of discriminatory violence that are managed in the city of Dénia, in which gender violence predominates followed of sexual, ethnic and, finally, ideological discrimination, he explained.
Scotto pointed out that «1 in 5 cases of discriminatory violence is not reported, according to statistics from the Valencian Observatory for equal treatment, non-discrimination and the prevention of hate crimes; an iceberg effect that we have tried to counteract in Dénia with the creation of the Eros Unit of the Local Police, created to fight against sexual discrimination and hate crimes.
The councilor makes a distinction when talking about discrimination, alluding to the existence of "a 'hard' discriminatory violence, criminal violence, and another 'soft' violence, socially accepted: in groups, always based on jokes, word games and, above all, everything, prejudices.
There is also horizontal discrimination, "which occurs socially against minority groups such as the LGTBI group" and vertical discrimination, "which is the discrimination of the public Administration itself towards citizens, exemplified in the last case that we have known of segregation of the LGTBI section of municipal libraries, as if it were pornography.
Javier Scotto focused on the phenomenon of hate speech, "with the growing populist discourse of the extreme right that has also established itself in public institutions, and with the increase in false information through digital channels that are penetrating the society".
The antidote, according to Scotto, is found in "informing and training, as well as involving society to manage its own diversity, resolve conflicts and commit to participation and social dialogue."
Finally, the councilor highlighted that exclusion "is never justified with a but, that progress cannot exist at the expense of others, that hate speech is the beginning of the act of hate and that urban security must be at the service of the most vulnerable.
