Spaniards 'taken to border' before incident gets worse

Border on Gibraltar side
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GIBRALTAR (Agencies) A young man from Sevilla, Jaime Bejarano, and four friends on a visit to the Rock last Sunday, were escorted to the border by the Royal Gibraltar Police, after a call was made that suggested an incident on Main Street could become worse if the police did not intervene. Apparently Bejarano and his friends were posing for photographs amidst Jubilee celebrations, when he lifted his football shirt to kiss the Spanish emblem it spoted. This provoked numerous insults and rude gestures from passers-by, as well as angry exchanges involving the group of Spaniards. The RGP later explained that>>>
they were taken to Central Police Station for their own safety, adding that it was suggested they leave Gibraltar, although at no time were they expelled, as was reported in some Spanish media. One Spanish newspaper said that it was possible that the tourists 'did not know that the Jubilee was being celebrated that day'. Another reported that the insults included such niceties as muertos de hambre (or, 'poor and hungry' in reference to Spain's financial problems) and 'go back to Spain', or 'get out of Gibraltar'. Bejarano's girlfriend, Inmaculada Rueda, also from Sevilla, told another paper that he had been asked to put his shirt on inside out, but that he refused to do so, which is when they were taken to the police station. The RGP says that the group was 'never under arrest'.

(Prospero comment: The girlfriend said also that they were never told that wearing a Spanish shirt could lead to problems. In my not very modest opinion, there was a severe lack of common sense among the group, which presumably never reads a paper or watches the news on TV - or they did it on purpose.)