Police in Spain have arrested nine people in connection with anti-migrant violence in the town of Torre Pacheco over the weekend, a local official said on Monday.
After a July 9 assault on an elderly local resident, who said one of his assailants was Moroccan, far-right groups called for violence against migrants in the town of 35,000 in Spain’s southeastern Murcia region. Starting on Friday, there have been three nights of violence as far-right groups “hunt” for migrants.
Five people have been injured, Spanish media reported, and 90 members of the Civil Guard police force have been deployed to deter further violence and prevent far-right agitators from entering the town.
According to Mariola Guevara Cava, the central government delegate to the region where the clashes occurred, nine people have been arrested in connection with the disturbances.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska blamed the street violence on the “rhetoric of the far right” — including that of Spain’s far-right Vox party — “which unjustifiably equates immigration with crime.”
He added that “organized groups” had called for violence on social media, and said that the National Police had launched an investigation to identify the people behind the accounts summoning agitators to the area.
Spain’s Civil Guard had identified more than 20 vehicles that had traveled to the town to join the riots, Grande-Marlaska noted, with some carrying “dangerous items” meant to be used as weapons.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal said the government’s migration policies were to blame for the disturbances in Torre Pacheco, a rural community where approximately a third of local residents are foreign-born and employed in the agricultural sector. The far-right party’s regional leader, José Ángel Antelo, spent the weekend publishing messages on social media accusing “illegals” of committing crimes in the area and urging followers to “recover peace and security in our neighborhoods.”
The Murcia region’s wing of Spain’s Socialist Party on Monday filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in which it argued Antelo’s xenophobic rhetoric constitutes a hate crime.
Aitor Hernández-Morales contributed to this report.
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