Spain’s Brand Official Abuses Catalans

Juan Carlos Gafo, Deputy Director of the Office of the High Commissioner of the Government for Marca España (Spain’s Brand), used his personal Twitter account to insult the Catalans in response to the loud protest of the Spanish anthem during the opening ceremony of the World Swimming Championships.

His tweet reads: “Catalanes de mierda. No se merecen nada.” In English this translates to something like: “Fucking Catalans. They don’t deserve anything.”

Curiously enough, on a second tweet, he demanded respect for the anthem, which is inconsistent with the generalized insults he made the previous day to all Catalans.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Garcia-Margallo, after verifying that the message sent by Juan Carlos Gafo via Twitter was authentic, decided to dismiss him. Taking into account that the main purpose of the organization where he works is to look after the good image of the country, the Minister had to take this action.

After deleting the provocative message from Twitter, he also sent another tweet apologizing for his error. In this tweet he also announced that he would be leaving Spain’s Brand.


Previously he had been Chief of Protocol in the Moncloa between 2004 and 2008, and Ambassador in Lebanon between 2009 and 2012.