Spain is to ramp up investigations into suspected crimes by far-right and racist groups after a series of clashes with African migrants that erupted over four days beginning last Friday, in some of the nation’s worst such unrest of recent times.
The authorities detained 11 people and filed more than 60 complaints over hate crimes and disorder sparked by an attack on a local man in his 60s in the town of Torre Pacheco in Spain’s southeastern Murcia region. Three Moroccan males were among those detained by the police in a town where one third of the inhabitants are of migrant origin.
The Spanish Interior Ministry said terrorism and organised crime intelligence specialists have been instructed to broaden their remit to track hate crimes and to monitor online outlets for posts inciting violence.
According to the ministry, far-right groups will be investigated for links to national movements. This follows government claims that Vox, the nationalist party that is now Spain’s third largest, was inciting violence in Torre Pacheco.
“We cannot allow hatred to take root in our society,” Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska declared, rejecting far-right claims that crime was on the rise and linked to migration. He pointed out that even as foreign resident numbers in Spain grew by 54% between 2011 and 2024, crime had dropped seven percentage points. Last year, he added, hate crimes were down by 13.8%. Spain, he said, was among the world’s 25 safest nations.
Vox has denied having anything to do with the violence, attributing the disorder to the migration policies of Spain’s socialist-led government.
Earlier this month, there were protests in Alcala de Henares, west of Madrid, after a man, identified as Malian in a report by the El Pais newspaper, was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault outside a migrant reception centre. Four people subsequently arrested during an unauthorised protest in front of the centre are being investigated for disorderly conduct.
Condemning the attack that triggered the unrest in Torre Pacheco, Grande-Marlaska praised the swift police response that led to the detention of the three suspects, including the alleged main perpetrator, who had been trying to flee to France.
Calls had gone out on social media urging people to go to the town to “protect Spaniards” and “hunt north Africans”, the minister said. Such “unacceptable attitudes” had grown in recent years, “encouraged by anonymity on social media, but also, and more seriously, by irresponsible politicians,” he added.
Spain has been open to the economic benefits of migration. However, led by Vox, the debate has flared up anew as plans to relocate unaccompanied underage migrants from the Canary Islands to the rest of Spain have recently been confirmed.