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Spain: 1995 report on racism

01 March 1996

SOS-Racismo has published a report on racist incidents throughout the Spanish State in 1995. The report takes a broad view of the phenomenon of racism and covers 250 cases of people who suffered some form of aggression or injury on account of their immigrant status. The report includes accounts, and specialist analysis, of the discrimination faced by Gypsies; official policy towards foreigners; violence and other abuses by the police; racist attacks by skinheads, and their links with the far right; discrimination against the immigrant population in employment and housing, and the events of last year in the Ceuta enclave (see Statewatch, vol 5 nos 3, 4, 5 & 6). The report, however, is by no means a comprehensive record of racist incidents over the year, since SOS-Racismo's Madrid office alone received reports of some 500 assaults and other occurrences. During 1995 recorded xenophobic attacks across the state rose by around 65%. On 15 March, 33 members of the neo-nazi Centuriones group were arrested in Barcelona. Rifles, pistols, ammunition, cudgels and other offensive weapons were seized, and gang members were charged with assaults, drug dealing and carrying out contract beatings. The group had links with the US Hell's Angels and with neo-nazi groups in several countries. Kontrola Kontrolpean, Euskadi (Spain).