“We cannot tolerate that a person, and even more so a public figure, is so comfortable inciting violence,” said the spokesperson for the Haitian community, David Antoine.
The Haitian community in Chile filed a criminal complaint Monday against national singer Pablo Herrera after he criticized immigrants last week, particularly those from Haiti, the world’s first independent black country.
It was last March 18 during a conversation with Radio Biobío that the Chilean artist declared: “The surroundings of La Vega are disgusting, disgusting, they are fucked up, sorry once again for the foreigners, especially the Haitians who sell chickens stuffed with whatever that nobody buys, they brought this damn culture, you see, and you have to shut yourself up to eat inside.”
“We have to make them respect again,” Herrera said. Faced with these comments, David Antoine, spokesperson for the Haitian community, accompanied by a lawyer from the CIJYS Foundation, filed a complaint with the courts for the offenses of unconditional threats and insults.
“As a community, we consider these comments to be reprehensible and unacceptable. These statements unfortunately attack a culture, and when you attack a culture, you obviously offend an entire people,” Antoine said, adding that “we are against discrimination, xenophobia, and worse, incitement to violence.”
“We believe that we are going to usher in a new era for the immigrant community, because above all, this cannot be, we cannot tolerate that a person, and even worse, a public figure, feels so comfortable in inciting violence, which is by definition a crime,” added the spokesperson.
According to The secondthe complaint was accompanied by the story of a Haitian immigrant, initials RAD, who claimed to feel “emotionally affected” by the words of Pablo Herrera
