MADRID (SPAIN)
Associated Press [New York NY]
October 6, 2022
By Ciaran Giles
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Thursday described as intolerable the behavior of male students at a Madrid university residence hall who in a video on Twitter can be heard cheering after one of them screamed a string of sexist and vulgar obscenities at female students.
“We cannot tolerate these acts that generate hate and attack women,” Sánchez posted on his official Twitter account from Prague.
“It’s especially painful to see that the protagonists are young people,” he said. “Not one step backward. Equality policies are necessary. Enough of sexism.”
The video, which has spread widely on social media, was recorded at night across from the college residence hall on the campus of Madrid’s Complutense University. A man can be heard screaming “You are whores, you are nymphomaniacs” and other vulgarities, including threats of sexual assault.
Then, groups of young men at windows on seven floors of the building are seen raising the window shutters in unison, cheering and shouting insults of their own at a residential building for women students across the way.
The incident took place at Colegio Major Elías Ahuja, a residence for male students run by the Augustinian Fathers, a Catholic religious order. Complutense University said it would open an investigation.
Álvaro Nieto, the residence’s assistant director, told reporters Thursday that the incident happened Sunday and that the primary person involved was expelled. He said the school was trying to identify who else took part in the incident.
Some news reports described the incident as a performance to coincide with the new academic year. Spanish daily newspaper ABC said a similar event happened last year at the residence.
Spanish state news agency Efe said the residence had apologized to the women’s residence and the Augustinian Missionary Sisters congregation that runs it.