Spain: Racism against Gypsies
01 January 1991
Spain: Racism against Gypsies
artdoc May=1994
- Gypsies face lynch-mob
A crowd of 1,000 people tried to attack the home of a Gypsy
family in Real de Gandia, Valencia, after a 15-year-old local boy
crashed his motorbike into a Gypsy caravan and died. Despite a
ban on demonstrations in the wake of the boy's funeral, the crowd
gathered outside the Gypsies' home, chanting `murderers',
`criminals' and `burn them out'. Police prevented the crowd from
harming the family or their home, but afterwards neighbours
threatened that they would get the Gypsies out of the village (La
Vanguardia 21.8.93).
- Gypsies evicted
A Gypsy family, living in a tent in the village of Franqueses,
Catalonia, for a year, were evicted in August and forced to sleep
on the street with no shelter. The mayor decided to go ahead with
removal of the tent, and of all the Cortes family's possessions,
claiming that the tent caused an obstruction to works in the
area, despite a last-minute plea from the Social Services
department, and despite the workmen saying they were not
returning to the site until the following month, by which time
the family was likely to have somewhere to live. When Mr Cortes
protested about the eviction, he was arrested and, although
released after a few hours, had wrist injuries from the
handcuffs, his wife said. Eight Gypsy families face eviction
from a farm near Tarragona by the Council, which claims that the
building is derelict and must be demolished. They have lived at
the farm for a number of years and some of their number were born
in the area and have lived there for forty years. Their children
attend local schools. The authorities acknowledge that the
Gypsies will find it difficult to find anywhere else to live,
because `owners don't want Gypsies', but says the eviction must
go ahead (Valles 7.8.93; Diari de Tarragona 2.9.93).
Migrant workers hounded out
A group of 50 seasonal workers from the Maghreb went on strike
to protest at the racism of the socialist mayor of the village
of Massalcoreig, Lerida, where they were fruit-picking, and his
refusal to take action to protect them.
About 200 seasonal workers, mostly from Morocco and Algeria,
came to the village for the harvest. They were given no lodgings,
and most slept in the open fields. Some found a deserted pigsty
and erected temporary shelters there, but were burnt out by
locals. Several were injured in fights with local people. They
were also banned from using the local sports centre. When they
complained, mayor Ernesto Juste (who is also a provincial deputy)
accused them of setting fire to their own shelter, and added that
they were stealing and intimidating local people. The workers
countered that he had tried to run a number of them down in his
car, had picked fights with them in bars, and stopped them
regularly to demand their identity papers. The mayor denied
trying to run them down, but `Those with no papers should leave',
he said. `There are too many of them anyway'. The legal workers
said if the illegals were expelled, they would leave too, and a
day after the strike began, 40 of the workers left the village
(El Periodico 4, 5.8.93)
Railway guards beat Moroccans
Two Moroccans were beaten by railway guards in Lleida after being
stopped and asked for their papers. The men, Ahmed Mahdki and
Hamid Saim, were returning from a week's fruit-picking in
Zaragoza, and had just got off the train when three guards
approached them and demanded their papers; then, when these were
in order, their train tickets. When one of the men delayed in
finding his ticket, both were forced into the left luggage room
at the station, hit and then taken to another room in the
station. The guards locked the door and then set about the men,
beating them so badly that Mahdki ended up in hospital with a
number of fractures and with severe bruising to the spine (La
Manana 24.8.93).
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