The comedians of the TV3 program Està Passant Toni Soler, Judit Martín and Jaïr Domínguez will have to testify in court as defendants for the Virgen del Rocío gag. A judge from Sant Feliu de Llobregat has accepted the complaint filed by the ultra-conservative association Christian Lawyers and has summoned the participants of the parody to testify on October 27.
According to the order to which this newspaper has had access, the judge appreciates that the facts referred to "may constitute a crime of insults, with which it is appropriate to carry out as preliminary measures the essential ones aimed at determining the nature and circumstances of the fact, the persons who have participated in it and the applicable procedure".
For the moment, Domínguez has already advanced in a message on Twitter that he will not attend the summons. "They will have to take me in a patrol car because I am not going to spend gasoline to go to declare," she said.
The parody, which made satire of the sexual life of the Virgin and the actress used an Andalusian accent, triggered an avalanche of criticism against the Està Passant program and against TV3. The Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno, spoke about the controversy and reproached the chain that the gag "was disrespectful." For their part, the Catalan bishops issued a statement regretting that the sketch hurt the sensibilities of many people "and particularly that of all believers who, under this invocation of the Virgin Mary, keep their faith and religious traditions."
The direction of the Catalan public television defended the gag in a parliamentary commission as a "symptom of democratic quality". He argued that he was protected by freedom of expression and ruled out his withdrawal, as had been claimed by the PSC, VOX and Ciutadans groups, considering it offensive to believers and to Catalans of Andalusian origin. The complainants, Christian Lawyers, considered that the parody violated the religious sentiments of thousands of Christians.
Toni Soler and Jair Domínguez already had to appear before the courts after being denounced by Mossos unions for a gag that equated the Catalan police officers with dogs for their actions in the protests against the sentence of the process. That case was filed.
The case that the National Court opened against Domínguez for insults to the Crown after appearing in a sketch in which he simulated shooting at a photo of the King also came to naught. Soler, Dominguez and Martín join other comedians who have been summoned to court for their parodies. Willy Toledo was tried for having "shit on God and the Virgin" on his Facebook account. He was denounced by the same association of Christian Lawyers that has denounced Soler for the gag of the Virgin, while Dani Mateo was tried and acquitted for having blown his nose with a Spanish flag during a gag.
