SPAIN
01 January 1991
SPAIN
artdoc July=1994
Asylum and immigration
Instant expulsion for undocumented workers awaiting trial
The public prosecutor, Elgio Hernandez, has issued a circular to
local prosecutors instructing them to carry out automatic
expulsions on undocumented immigrants awaiting trial or serving
sentences for criminal offences in Spanish prisons. The circular,
to take effect immediately, applies to all those charged or
convicted of crimes carrying six years imprisonment or less, and
will therefore effect at least half of the 6000 undocumented
immigrants awaiting trial or serving sentences for criminal
offences in Spanish prisons. A petition of expulsion would be
effective from the moment of an official criminal charge.
Hernandez, who justifies the new proposals, as a strategy to
counter prison overcrowding, claims that many people awaiting
expulsion for illegal immigration were able to delay the process
by committing a criminal offence (El Pais 3,4.3.94).
Racism and fascism
Court round-up: Light sentence for racist gang
Twelve of the 26 youths found guilty of beating up 6 Algerians
in Pinada de Fraga Park, Huesca, in June 1992 were sentenced to
prison terms of 2 years, 4 months and a day. The judge rejected
prosecution demands for terms of 4 years, saying the youth were
drunk when they set upon the Algerians sleeping in the park. The
evidence showed that the gang went out armed with staves and
other weapons hunting for immigrants. First they looked in an
orchard; then, after attacking the six, they went on to a house
where immigrants slept. They claimed they intended only to
frighten the men, who ended up in hospital because of their
injuries (El Pais 3.3.94).
Extradition of Austrian neo-nazi sought
The Spanish supreme court has ordered the extradition of a
convicted Austrian neo-nazi who fled to Spain rather than serve
a jail sentence in Austria. Gerd Honsik was living openly in
Spain until the judges' order; he has now disappeared (Times
5.11.93).
Soldiers attack Somalis
The military governor of Zaragoza was maintaining silence over
the detention of 5 soldiers in February accused of an attack on
2 Somali youths who were dancing at a disco. One of the Somalis
complained to the civil police that some 20 conscripts set upon
the 2 men as they left the disco and beat and kicked them
`because we were black'. One of the men suffered broken ribs. Six
soldiers were arrested shortly afterwards for public order
offences; one was bailed and the others detained (El Pais
22.2.94).
Skinhead attack after Real Madrid's football match
A press photographer was left with head injuries and cuts and
bruises all over his body when skinheads attacked him after a
Real Madrid-Madrid Atletico match. Gilberto Villamil was
approached by a group of youths who asked him questions about his
job and his nationality. When he said he was Colombian by birth,
the youths demanded cocaine, and when he tried to get away, they
set upon him and beat him (El Pais 15.1.94).
Socialist Catalonian mayor defends racist exhibit
A row has broken out in the Catalonia Socialist party after the
socialist mayor of the town of Banyoles, Joan Solana, refused to
withdraw a gruesome racist exhibit from public show. The dried
corpse of an African chief, complete with loincloth, spear and
tribal feathers, is still on show in a glass cage in the
municipal museum despite a campaign which is culminating in a
motion condemning its continuing display to be passed by the
socialists at their next congress. The mayor has threatened to
resign if the motion is passed (El Pais 26.1.94).
IRR European Race Audit, Bulletin no 8, May 1994. Contact:Liz
Fekete, Insitute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X
9HS. Tel: 071 837 0041