Religious harassment brings 8-month suspension

The Military Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court has upheld the 8-month suspension of a member of the Guardia Civil for harassing a civilian waitress in the North African enclave at Melilla. The victim had suffered an anxiety attack after the accused harassed her for not following the Koran and otherwise not being a good Muslim. Details here from El Vanguardia. This was not speedy justice. The offense occurred in April 2016.

Speaking of the Guardia Civil, the three associations that represent its members have complained about working conditions when they are assigned to duty guarding the Royal Family during the summer. According to this article in the Majorca Daily Bulletin:

Guardia Civil associations have denounced what they claim are breaches of labour rights for officers who are assigned to the Royal Household. The complaints centre on their having to do marathon shifts, time off being cut, and not having relief for night services.

In a joint statement on Friday, the three associations said that officers on duty with the Royal Household suffer "frequent harm to their labour rights" but do not dare denounce this because of fears of what this might mean for their careers.

The Guardia Civil is a member force of FIEP (the International Association of Gendarmeries and Police Forces with Military Status). According to the FIEP website:

The FIEP (French acronym for France-Italie-Espagne-Portugal / France-Italy-Spain-Portugal, which are the first four “historical” members) is an association consisting of gendarmeries and police forces with military status originally from the Euro-Mediterranean area.

Founded in 1994, it then comprised the French National Gendarmerie, the Italian Carabinieri Corps and the Spanish Civil Guard. It was quickly joined by the Portuguese National Republican Guard in 1996. Afterwards, the Turkish Gendarmerie in 1998 swelled the ranks followed by the Dutch Royal Marechaussee and the Moroccan Royal Gendarmerie both in 1999, the Romanian Gendarmerie in 2002 and the Jordanian Gendarmerie Forces in 2011. The Argentinian Gendarmeria National and the Chilean Carabinieros joined the association as Associate Members in 2005 and the Qatari Internal Security Force “Lekhwiya” in 2013. The Tunisian National Guard became a member in 2016. The Ukrainian National Guard and the Palestinian national security Forces followed in 2017, as did the Brazilian State Military Police and Military Fire Brigades. Finally, the Djibouti National Gendarmerie joined in 2017 and during the Summit of October 2018, two forces became Observer: the Kuwait National Guard and the Senegalese National Gendarmerie.