Barcelona Suspends Guàrdia Urbana Officer 24 Days Over Catalan Refusal
Barcelona suspended a city police officer for 24 days without pay after he refused to speak Catalan to a woman. What happened, the rules and what comes next.
The Ajuntament de Barcelona (city council) has suspended an officer of the Guàrdia Urbana (Barcelona’s city police) for 24 days without work or pay after he refused to address a woman in Catalan during a stop and called her request “fascist” and “totalitarian,” according to ABC and El Periódico. The council says the penalty is for “inappropriate treatment” of the woman, not for the choice of language itself.
The woman was also fined during the same incident and is fighting that fine in court. Her backers now hope the officer’s suspension will help get it cancelled.
A night stop on Rambla Prim
The incident took place on the night of July 13, 2025, on Rambla Prim. According to Plataforma per la Llengua, the Catalan language group that brought the complaint, the woman was walking with two friends when officers asked for their identity documents, saying the group was trying to enter a closed-off area. She asked why they were being identified and repeatedly asked the officer to speak to her in Catalan.
The exchange was filmed. In the video, released by the group on Thursday, the officer refuses to switch languages and says forcing people to speak a language they do not want to use is typical of fascists, ABC reported. ABC added that the woman stays polite throughout the recording.
How the investigation reached a penalty
Plataforma per la Llengua filed a formal complaint with the council in December 2025, arguing that the officer had breached language rights set out in Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy and in city rules. The Guàrdia Urbana’s internal affairs and ethics unit investigated and passed its findings to the council’s human resources department.
That department classed the officer’s conduct as disrespectful toward the woman and as serious negligence in carrying out his duties, El Periódico reported. The decision is not yet final and the officer can appeal. Police sources told the paper that respect and professionalism are basic principles of any police action.
Since the case, the force’s command has reminded officers that, as a general rule, their first spoken contact with the public should be in Catalan, in line with city service criteria. The council said it remains committed to protecting residents’ language rights.
What the language rules actually say
The legal picture is mixed. Barcelona’s 2010 language regulation said in article 7 that city employees should speak Catalan unless a resident asked for Spanish. In 2012 the Tribunal Superior de Justícia de Catalunya (Catalonia’s high court) partly struck that down, ruling that residents could not be made to request a change of language, while accepting normal use of Catalan by the administration. The same court ruled in 2015 against making Catalan the mandatory preferred language in public service, ABC reported.
Article 33 of the Statute of Autonomy gives everyone the right to use the official language of their choice with public bodies, but it does not place that obligation on individual officials, according to ABC.
Why it matters for residents
For anyone stopped by city police, the case sets out how the council now expects officers to behave: open in Catalan and treat people with respect whichever language they use. Plataforma per la Llengua says most police language complaints are closed without action. Its own records show 269 complaints against police forces between 2021 and October 2026, including 33 about the Guàrdia Urbana, 40 about the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s police) and 141 about the Policía Nacional (Spain’s national police).
The group’s president, Òscar Escuder, said the decision shows police language discrimination is not a minor matter. Coverage of the case also differs in tone: La Gaceta, a Madrid outlet, described the officer as punished for answering in Spanish and called the language group separatist.
The woman’s own fine
During the stop, the Guàrdia Urbana fined the woman for allegedly heckling and belittling the officers. Plataforma per la Llengua says the police report describes behavior that never happened. After the council rejected her objections, the group took the fine to the administrative courts, where it plans to use the disciplinary ruling against the officer to argue for cancelling the fine.
Sources: ABC, El Periódico, La Gaceta
