MADRID (AP) – Prosecutors in Spain have launched two separate investigations involving a far-right party and extremist neo-Nazi sympathizers for possible hate crimes against Muslims and Jews, respectively.
The Barcelona province prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday it was investigating the recent campaign in a regional Catalan election by Vox, a party that combines Spanish nationalism, populism and an uncompromising stance against illegal migration, after receiving complaints from several Muslim communities.
The groups, representing more than 300 mosques in the northeast region, argued that Vox’s social media campaign under the tag #StopIslamization, which included a video mix featuring news about Muslims and an extremist attack in 2017, was defamatory of Muslims in Catalonia.
Barcelona prosecutor Pilar López told The Associated Press that the initial investigation, which is protected by judicial secrecy, could take up to six months to decide whether the campaign amounts to inciting hatred against Muslims.
Vox parliamentary spokesman Iván Espinosa de los Monteros said on Tuesday that the party was proud of its actions. The campaign highlighted the risks, he said, “that have been brought by some who do not accept the Western lifestyle and are even coming down on it.”
Vox first entered Catalan politics, raising alarm across the political spectrum, taking 11 of the regional parliament’s 135 seats on Sunday, more than the other two center-to-right parties combined.
In another case, prosecutors in Madrid began an investigation into anti-Semitic reports from a small group of extremists who gathered on Saturday to honor the memory of a Spanish platoon that joined Nazi forces during World War II.
In videos distributed by the Russian news agency Ruptly of the March in Madrid’s largest cemetery, a woman gives a fiery speech calling ‘the Jew’ ‘the enemy’.