Just under a month ago, on 26 March this year, the European Union established a model based on the US ICE system in Europe. The new regulation, driven by the far right but with the complicity of the social democrats, that absteined or didn’t do enough pressure to stop it, institutionalises racism even further. It also endorses the routine human rights violations against migrants within the European Union.

Some of the new rules include extending detention to minors, separating them from their parents, and deportation to third countries. They also pave the way for greater restrictions on the movement of people, increased searches and breaches of privacy, and the facilitation of racist raids even in private homes… measures that were met with loud applause from MEPs.

On the very day this legislation was passed, Serigne Mbaye, a well-known activist and politician, was arrested in Madrid on the basis of racial profiling. After months of harassment, the police arrested him at his front door, along with other people who had come to defend him, during a racist raid using violent methods. A 2023 report by SOS Racisme concluded that the police stop and search foreign nationals around 7.4 times more often than Spanish nationals in Catalonia, with people of Maghrebi origin being the most targeted. A 2013 study by Metroscopia yielded similar results, with Roma people being stopped for identification around 10 times more often than white people, followed by people of Maghreb origin and Afro-Latin Americans.

But police racism is not limited to arrests and harassment; police racism also kills. Recent footage of the killing of Haitam Mejri at a call shop in Torremolinos clearly shows the impunity and normalisation of violent behaviour on the part of the officers. Six police officers fired eleven taser shots at him and pinned him down with a knee on his chest, reminiscent of the infamous killing of George Floyd in the US. The judge closed the investigation. Last year, in May 2025, the national police shot and killed the young Gambian Abdoulie Bah at Gran Canaria airport. That same year, Mahamedi, whose parents were from The Gambia, Harold Medina, a Colombian, and Yoni Barrul, a Romani man, died as a result of police action or whilst in custody. Several street vendors have died of heart attacks and accidents whilst being chased by the police, such as Mamour Bakhoum in 2021, Mami Mbaye in 2018 and Mor Sylla in 2015.

Over the last decade, there have been two massacres at our borders: in 2022, around 2,000 people attempted to cross the border between Melilla and Morocco, and following the intervention of police forces on both sides of the border, at least 37 people died, 76 went missing and some 500 were abandoned in remote areas without medical care. In 2014, 200 people attempted to enter Ceuta by swimming across Tarajal beach whilst the Civil Guard fired rubber bullets at them, killing 14 people, who remain unidentified. No one has been held accountable for either of these massacres.

Furthermore, there have been numerous deaths in police custody, in Foreigners’ Detention Centres and in juvenile detention centres. Mamedi Diawara, Stefan Lache, Samba Martine, Idrissa Diallo, Mohamed Bouderbala and Marouane Abouobaida are some of the names of people who died due to inadequate hygiene conditions, lack of medical care and causes related to police violence. Of the 162 people who died in custody or during police operations between 2015 and 2022 in Spain, nationality data is available for only 25 cases, and of these, 11 were of foreign origin.

And these are only the cases that have been verified, as there is hardly any official data regarding these deaths or other racist police practices, such as stops based on racial profiling. This is merely the tip of the iceberg of everyday and systemic racism faced by racialised people in Spain.

In the face of police and systemic racism that kills people every day, the only option is to organise. Recently, a network of 11 groups has organised a response to these abuses by proposing a police report form to record racist police assaults. The streets are also responding with demonstrations and rallies following every assault and murder, and the pressure must increase every day to put an end to this scourge.

References

• Amnesty International. Tragedia en la valla de Melilla: Un año de impunidad tras la masacre https://www.es.amnesty.org/en-que-estamos/blog/historia/articulo/tragedia-en-la-valla-de-melilla-nunca-mas/

• Público. Más de tres años en busca de respuestas y “justicia” por la muerte de un joven en los calabozos de la comisaría de Carabanchel. https://www.publico.es/sociedad/tres-anos-busca-respuestas-justicia-muerte-joven-calabozos-comisaria-carabanchel.html

• SOS Racisme. Persecució i perfilació policial a Espanya. https://sosracisme.org/persecucio-i-perfilacio-policial-a-espanya/

• Fundación Secretariado Gitano. Identificación Policial por Perfil Étnico en España: el caso de las personas gitanas. https://www.informesdiscriminacion.gitanos.org/a-fondo/1-identificaci%C3%B3n-policial-por-perfil-%C3%A9tnico-en-espa%C3%B1a-el-caso-de-las-personas-gitanas

• La Marea. El Estado no ofrece datos exactos sobre las muertes en dependencias policiales en España. https://www.lamarea.com/2024/05/28/no-hay-datos-exactos-sobre-muertes-comisarias-dependencias-policiales-espana/

• El Salto. 162 personas murieron en actuaciones o bajo custodia policial en España entre 2015 y 2022. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/violencia-policial/al-menos-162-personas-murieron-actuaciones-custodia-policial-espana-2015-2022

• El Salto. Opinión. Nos organizamos ante el abuso policial racista. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/opinion/nos-organizamos-abuso-policial-racista

• El Salto. Colectivos antirracistas exigen esclarecer la muerte de Mahamedi en la comisaría de Montornès del Vallès. https://www.elsaltodiario.com/barcelona/colectivos-antirracistas-exigen-esclarecer-muerte-mahamedi-comisaria-montornes-del-valles