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The Barcelona provincial prosecutor’s office has agreed to process a complaint against Pilar Rahola on charges of incitement to hatred and complicity in genocide related to the Gaza war.
The legal action was brought by two activists from the Socialist Youth Organisation (OJS) of Catalonia.
The activists were already known to Rahola. They threw red paint over her during a lecture organised by the Fundació Martí l’Humà in La Garriga in October 2024. The pair faced their own charges over that incident.
The public prosecutor has opened pre-trial investigative proceedings, preliminary steps before any criminal process, to verify the facts and determine whether the case against Rahola should be referred to a court or dismissed.
The proceedings have been assigned to the Central Hate and Discrimination Crime Unit of the Mossos d’Esquadra.
The incidents cited in the complaint took place between 2024 and 2025. In one of them, Rahola publicly questioned the number of children killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza; in another she replied on X to a post by the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, denying claims that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and accusing her of being a propagandist for hatred.
She also wrote in an article that “if Israel had wanted to carry out a genocide it would have taken three days, not three years”.
The complaint
The complaint filed by the two activists asked the prosecutor’s office to open an investigation into the journalist as part of a “machinery of barbarity,” in which it said she “builds the social framework that makes it possible for the crime to be carried out and for its perpetrators to enjoy impunity”.
The OJS argues that her statements cannot be covered by freedom of expression because they contribute to the systematic denial of the crime of genocide.
It goes on to note that Rahola was appointed to the advisory council for Latin America of the organisation Combat Antisemitism Movement and that in 2010, the Jewish National Fund planted a forest in occupied-Palestinian territory bearing her name. The accusation bases these claims on press articles.
The hate-crime offence has existed in Spain since 2015 and was expanded in 2022 by Pedro Sánchez’s government. Critics of the law argue that it acts as a deterrent to public discourse, potentially silencing criticism and conditioning political debate.
Spain adopted the National Plan for the Implementation of the European Strategy for Combating Antisemitism in 2023 and endorsed the definition set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes certain expressions of hostility towards Israel amongst the contemporary forms of antisemitism.
Rahola remains on air
Rahola is continuing to publish and appear in El Periódico de Catalunya, Infobae, El Nacional, the programme Todo es mentira on Cuatro and the international channel DNews.
Her supporters point out that pre-trial investigative proceedings do not imply guilt or a formal charge and that freedom of expression protects the defence of controversial political positions.
The Israeli embassy in Madrid has expressed public support for the journalist, who has made it clear in various statements that she has no intention of softening her stance.
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