Diana Lastiri

MEXICO CITY, October 14th (EL UNIVERSAL) .- A minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN for its Spanish acronym) will propose denying protection to a man who tattooed a swastika and who lost his job for refusing to cover it during his working hours, as his colleagues are from the Jewish community. Minister Norma Lucía Piña Hernández will present this Wednesday a draft sentence that seeks to acquit a company, whose owners claim to belong the Jewish community, to compensate a man whom he fired after he refused to cover or erase a tattoo that he has on the neck of a swastika cross, a symbol known worldwide as an anti-Semite. The man sued the company and alleged that he was the victim of discrimination by his employers, since tattoos are part of his freedom expression. In her project, the minister recognized the man has absolute freedom to tattoo a Nazi symbol, but by wearing it visibly in a context in which his collaborators and employers are Jewish, he turns into a speech of hatred and discrimination. "The use of the swastika image in a tattoo, it is insisted, exhibited in a specific context of presence of Hebrew people or Jewish religion who will be in necessary interrelation with the person who bears the symbol, does not remain in the category of an offensive and opprobrious speech (...) but transits to the character of hate speech (...) hence the exhibition of the emblem in a workplace where people who identify themselves as Jews already work (... ) does generate a discrimination climate. " For this reason, it plans to revoke a sentence issued by a Collegiate Court and deny protection to the man, who was demanding compensation from the company due to moral damage. "This First Chamber recognizes that wearing a tattoo is allowed and should not be discriminated for this reason; however, in this case the symbol worn by the complainant represents an apology for hate or racist (anti-Semitic) hate speech, which in the specific circumstances of the case, updated a restriction on the constitutional and conventional rights protection of free personality development and freedom expression exercised by him.” "So the measures adopted by the company against the human dignity and safety of its employees and managers were valid, reasonable and proportional; so that they cannot constitute a discrimination act against the complainant. Hence, it is not configuring the civil liability action attempted to obtain compensation for moral damage”, specifies the project. Minister Piña's project establishes that contrary to what the complainant alleged, the State is not obliged to protect freedom expression and free personality development when, in exercise of these rights, people advocate racial hatred.