For a start, the charges actually date back to 2020, when the Court Prosecutor’s Office in Catalonia accused Ballester of a “hate crime” based on what he wrote in a 2016 article titled “The Impossible Dialogue with Islam.”

As it stands, he is one of two priests on trial in Malaga for inciting hatred against immigrants and Muslims. The pair are alleged to have made discriminatory remarks in articles on a website, whose editor is also on trial for effectively promoting Race Replacement Theory. The absolute maximum charge in this case is a 4 year prison sentence and/or about €1,500 of a fine (effectively negligible).

https://www.surinenglish.com/malaga/malaga-city/the-malaga-p...

According to the public prosecution, Ballester had previously referred to the Muslim population as a "predatory stain" or "termites" on social media. In addition, he had reportedly said that "a dialogue with Islam is impossible". ... According to the prosecution, Jesús Calvo also incited hatred by publicly using expressions such as "invading refugees", who "complicate coexistence" and want to "wipe out the white race by bringing in all the rubbish". ... The highest sentence requested concerns the editor who, according to the prosecutor, approached his position of power "to point to immigration, especially of African origin, to Europe, in general, and to Spain, in particular, as an invasion aimed at the destruction of the European people". ... To do so, the indictment states, they would identify refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants, especially Muslims, "as potential criminals or delinquents, parasites of the system unworthy of residing in Europe". The defendant is believed to have used various strategies to "generate animosity and hostility".