In Tafzi El Hadri and El Idrissi Mouch v. Spain, (ECHR, Jan 8, 2026), the European Court of Human Rights rejected claims by two educators employed by the C.V. residential center for minors in Barcelona that Spanish courts had failed to protect their right to their reputation protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights when the courts ruled in favor of a journalist who published an article that criticized them. The article in question said in part:
"Many educators, who have been employed solely because they are able to speak a Moroccan dialect, preach non-integration to teenagers.
Some centres for minors that take in many Muslim boys have become hotbeds for training Islamists.... However, [these authorities] are powerless to tackle a problem that feeds into a failure of social integration....
The situation at the [C.V.] centre for minors in Barcelona is also of great concern, as recognised by the centre's management..... Of the 26 Maghrebi minors currently housed in this centre, 24 are from Tangier and many of them have known each other since their childhood because they lived in the same neighbourhood. They communicate with their educators in the Dariya dialect. One of [the educators is] Omar El Idrisi who, according to sources at the centre ..., indoctrinates the pupils in Islamist fundamentalism.... He takes his pupils to pray at the Tariq Ibu Ziyad Mosque, [which is] named after the Berber general who led the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. Another educator at the centre is Khaliltafzi [sic.] El Hadri, a member of Justice and Charity ..., one of the most radical strands of Islam.... When [the minors turn] 18, they are recruited to work in establishments run by Islamists, where they continue their [radicalisation].
The Court said in part:
97. ... Although some of the statements in the ABC article could be seen as controversial and the journalist's choice of terms ... was strong, the Court observes that the publication concerned a specific and clearly defined issue: the methods allegedly used in some centres for minors in order to accommodate unaccompanied minor immigrants, particularly staff selection policies and, in the absence of sufficient administrative oversight, the employment of staff who allegedly preached radical Islamism. The article highlighted the vulnerability of the foreign minors concerned, which made them especially susceptible to manipulation and indoctrination. It further exposed the potential risks to the integration of those minors that might lead to their subsequently being recruited into radical Islamism. The Court therefore agrees with the domestic courts that the journalist and the newspaper could clearly rely on their right to freedom of expression....
109. In sum, the Court sees no reason to depart from the domestic courts' findings that the journalist displayed the required diligence in checking the information concerning the applicants before publishing it.... The Court reiterates that if the national courts apply an overly rigorous approach to the assessment of journalists' professional conduct, journalists could be unduly deterred from discharging their function of keeping the public informed....
114. In the light of the above, the Court finds that the domestic courts acted within their margin of appreciation when seeking to establish a balance between the applicants' rights under Article 8 and the newspaper's opposing right to freedom of expression under Article 10. The Court considers that the national courts conducted the required balancing exercise between the competing rights at stake.... By dismissing the applicants' claim, the domestic courts did not fail to comply with the positive obligation incumbent on the domestic authorities to protect the applicants' rights under Article 8 of the Convention.
Law & Religion UK reports on the decision.
