La Campaña Estatal por el Cierre de los Centros de Internamiento de Extranjeros (CIE), formada por diversas asociaciones y colectivos, está preparando una jornada de protesta para el próximo 15 de junio en todo el Estado con el fin de denunciar y difundir la existencia de este tipo de instalaciones y allanar el camino hacia su cierre definitivo. Se trata del segundo año consecutivo en el que se celebra la jornada. Leer mas…
Watch this space for our initiatives!
See the campaign link (information in Spanish) at: http://15jdiacontraloscie.wordpress.com/
Every year, Pro Igual´s shadow report on hate crimes in Spain focuses on specific aspects of this phenomenon. The theme for the 2013 report, submitted to the OSCE-ODIHR, has been remedies for victims.
The backdrop for hate crimes in Spain is severe economic crisis accompanied by the continuing rise in xenophobia and violent extremism of neo-Nazi groups. Yet remedies available to victims of alleged hate crimes are less than adequate, which explains why the reporting of hate crimes is extremely low, as compared to informal estimates of hate-motivated incidents.
Through combination of media monitoring and field work, the Pro Igual shadow report provides an overview of high profile hate crimes reported across Spain in the course of 2013 and highlights some of good practices reported or launched in 2013. Although Pro Igual´s focus is on xenophobia and racism, hate crimes based on other bias motivation (such as homophobia, disability or political orientation) have also been recorded.
On the basis of those findings, Pro Igual has made the following recommendations, both to the Spanish authorities and to the OSCE-ODIHR TND Hate Crimes unit:
To the Spanish Authorities:
To the OSCE:
The full report in English is available here.
Pro Igual is proud to announce that our Vice-President and Co-Founder, Dr. Daria Terradez, along with a member of the Valencian Parliament, Monica Oltra, and a law professor at the Valencian University, Enric Bataller, will be speaking on Social Rights in Europe, this coming Friday, April 11, at 20:00, at Castell de Betera.
Campaign No Hate, in which Pro Igual participates, supports the creation of the Council of Victims Against Hate Crimes and Discrimination (the Spanish abbreviation COVIDAD).
The Council´s objectives are: promoting democratic values, sensibilization and civic participation; encouraging solidarity with victims and their legal, social, political and institutional protection; defending the memory of victims of hate crimes; calling for official action to erradicate prejudices, and working towards reaching the implementation of international standards in this field.
The Council could be reached at this email address: covidodATgmail.com
The original link is available (in Spanish) here.
Pro Igual continues the initiative, launched last year, to survey individual experiences with hate crime in Spain. If you were a victim or witness of a hate crime, or know someone who was, please help us raise awareness of the true scope of the phenomenon by taking part in our online survey on hate crimes in Spain, and sharing the link among your contacts and networks. The 2014 survey is available in Spanish and English. All responses are strictly confidential. Thank you for your help!
Hate crimes against ethnic minorities and undocumented foreigners have been one of the main issues of concern in Spain of the past decade. PRO IGUAL has developed the following set of recommendations to the police on detection and prevention of hate crimes in Spain. It is our hope that these recommendations may also be relevant for other countries facing similar problems as Spain.
1. Set up a hate crimes hotline.
There should be a national FREE hotline for hate crimes victims, similar to the hotline number for victims of gender violence in Spain (016). Alternatively, regional or local hotlines can be considered.
2. Do not ask victims for ID.
Some hate crimes victims are targeted because they are not, or perceived not to be, natives in that country. Some of the victims may be in an irregular administrative situation, punishable by law in Spain. For meaningful protection against hate crimes, it is important that such victims are not penalised even if they do not have appropriate documentation. International best practices of state support for victims of human trafficking may provide inspiration.
3. Have victim info readily available.
Ideally, hate crime victims should be aware of the protection mechanisms even before walking into the police station, via public information campaign. In each police station, there should be a visible poster with steps to take in case of hate-related attack and victim´s rights and/or brochures that victims can take with them.
4. Have a non-uniformed contact point.
The police uniform may have a deterrent effect on the victim. Each police station should have a non-uniformed staff member available to interview the victim and take their testimony, or be ready to have one of the officers to change out of uniform to that end.
5. Speak their language.
Some victims may not be fluent in the language. If there is nobody accompanying the victim or able to translate, it would be desirable to have a list/shared database of interpreters available for this task. If physical presence of the interpreter is impossible, at least telephone translation should be arranged.
6. Cooperate with medics.
Some victims of violent hate crime may not go police but to doctors instead. The local police should establish cooperation with local hospitals and health professionals so that the latter are able to detect hate crimes and are in a position to advise victims about how to report such crimes.
7. Public must know.
It is essential to inform not only victims but also general public, who should be aware about the phenomenon of hate crimes and the methods to report it. General public may be an additional resource for reporting such crimes and assisting the victims. Posters, TV and radio ads, and other publicity material must be developed to appeal to the public.
8. NGOs are partners.
Civil society organisations working in the field of monitoring hate crimes and/or victim assistance are an invaluable resource for the police providing an effective and cost-efficient resource in detecting, prosecuting and preventing hate crimes. Responsible police authorities should make every effort to contact and seek cooperation of such organisations.
9. An ounce of prevention.
Prevention of hate crimes by researching and targeting potential perpetrators can save many human and material resources entailed in subsequent prosecuting of hate crimes, repairing material damages and caring for victims. Some of the police resources currently used for preventing terrorism and/or ordinary crime (and often misused for racial profiling) should be re-directed for detecting and preventing hate crimes, specifically by conducting reconnaissance among known extremist right-wing and other hate groups.
10. Reach out to other hate crime victims.
When all the essential steps are taken to assist the victim of the case in hand, invite them to share support information with others, who may be in a similar distress but afraid to report hate crimes. Similarly to the electronic reporting mechanism for other crimes, the online resource for reporting hate crimes should be established and publicised.
Monitoring and documenting hate crimes is one of Pro Igual´s core projects. We realize that many victims do not report hate crimes because they fear repercussions, or because they think nobody would believe them. As a result, an estimated 95% of such crimes remain unreported. And the Spanish State has no incentive to address this problem. If you were a victim or witness of a hate crime, please help us raise awareness of the true scope of the phenomenon by taking part in our online survey on hate crimes in Spain in 2013 available in Spanish and English. All responses are strictly confidential.
Pro Igual´s Intervention at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Working Session 3: Violence Against Women
The following are the summary and recommendations of the joint report by Spanish NGOs Pro Igual and Ferrocarril Clandestino on the situation of migrant women in Spanish Detention Centers for Foreigners. The full report is available here.
Detention Centers for Foreigners are prisons in all but a name. Both governmental institutions and civil society have decried the appalling conditions and violations of human rights there. What is important to note is that detainees have not committed any crime, but merely an administrative infraction of not having papers in order, which presents less danger for the public than incorrect parking.
While both men and women face violations of their human rights, female detainees face a number of specific concerns. These include: sexual harassment by the guards; ill-treatment of pregnant and breastfeeding women; separation of mothers from minor children; lack of access to general medical and gynecological care, and lack of adequate nutrition even for pregnant women. Victims of human trafficking get no support whatsoever, even though they may be eligible for residence on humanitarian grounds.
Many migrant women end up in detention centers because of police raids based on the controversial practice of ethnic profiling, condemned by a number of international human rights bodies.
On the basis of these findings, we would like to recommend to the Spanish authorities the following:
By Anne Sewell, 12 September 2013
While Catalonians formed a human chain for independence in their region, a group carrying Spanish and fascist flags interrupted celebrations at the Catalan Government center in Madrid on Wednesday, shouting, tearing down flags and using pepper spray.
Six people, believed to be extreme right-wing or fascists, were arrested for their part in an attack which disrupted celebrations at the Blanquerna Cultural Center in Madrid on Wednesday. Read more…
Pro Igual Submission towards the OSCE Hate Crimes Report 2012
Spain´s Shame: CIEs, Prisons for Migrants
Spain Supreme Court Strikes down City Burqa Ban
June 14th, 2014 
