When Alexander Betancourt decided in 2019 to set up his boxing school on the ground floor of a building in Cáceres, he did not imagine that the racist attacks of a neighbor would force him to close and move to another place. This Cuban, who arrived in Spain in 2008, suffered a campaign of harassment that lasted more than a year by Yolanda G. V., a woman who lived in the same building. "He started throwing garbage at me in the inner courtyard," Betancourt recalls. "Then, as I walked through the door, he insulted me." And it went further. At least once a week, he would report to school and rebuke him in the presence of his students (many children) and their parents. "Black shit!", "Black slut and disgusting!", "I'm going to close the place!", he shouted, according to the justice, which sentenced the neighbor in 2022 to one year and six months in prison for a hate crime.
Betancourt decided to denounce. An unusual initiative in Spain. According to the Ministry of the Interior's report on hate crimes, about 90% of victims of hate crimes do not report – a large part related to racist attacks.
The Attorney General's Office indicates that 38.5% of the 1,824 judicial proceedings opened in 2021 for hate crimes corresponded to incidents of racism and xenophobia. However, the vast majority of cases are invisible in the statistics, agree the Public Ministry, the Interior, the European Union and social organizations. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights stresses in a report that "the most common reason for not reporting the incident" is that those affected believe that "nothing will happen or change". "At least a third of respondents think this," says the document, which stresses that "this problem should be brought to the surface, in order to try to reduce the number of existing underreporting."
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Racism in Spain does not end in football
Úrsula Ruiz, lawyer of SOS Racisme Catalunya, expresses her concern: "Most people who come to us, when interviewed, tell us that they have suffered episodes of racism before, but that they did not report it." The reasons, he adds, are multiple: because at the time of suffering them they had greater concerns and did not see themselves with the strength to undertake another struggle; because, when they occurred, they did not detect them as racism; for fear of being revictimized – the footballer Vinicius Jr. has been scrutinized after denouncing last Sunday that he suffered racist insults during Real Madrid's match against Valencia at the Mestalla field; fear of the response from the "bureaucratized" institutions themselves; or because they are in an irregular situation...
Almost twenty sentences analyzed by EL PAÍS reveal part of the racist dynamics that reach the courts. Physical and verbal aggressions, references to skin color, shouting orders for complainants to leave for their supposed country of origin. Although not all end in conviction.
Elena (not her real name) worked as a cashier in a large area of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) and in June 2019 a customer of about 45 years approached her to get paid. "The moment the employee returned the change and handed him the purchase ticket, it flew out driven by the wind, forcing [the customer] to run after him to retrieve it. Upon returning to the checkout window, visibly angry and in order to offend her, he directed expressions such as 'black shit', 'go to your country', 'black whore' and 'daughter of a bitch', as justice has considered proven.
The court, however, acquitted the man on March 21. The Audiencia de Madrid ruled out hate crime with these words: "The incident had a minimum duration, less than 10 seconds. It was an isolated incident, not intended to be witnessed by third parties, nor to incite hatred or violence, nor to offend the ethnic group to which the complainant belongs. The defendant acted in a cholera abduction [...] We are faced with an angry and unjustified response from a client who reacts rudely and offensively against a specific employee, not because he belongs to a race, but because of the treatment received from him, without the conduct carried out presenting perceptible differences with what until its decriminalization we had been describing as minor insults. "
Elena's lawyer, who stresses that the sentence has already been appealed, explains the "frustration" generated by this type of response from justice, while the fear still persists in the victim for crossing (in the street or at work) with the man. The Prosecutor's Office requested a sentence of eight months in prison.
Úrsula Ruiz, of SOS Racisme Catalunya, adds that the standard in Spain to convict for hate crime is "quite high", which adds to the fact that the treatment given to the victim is sometimes "abrupt", "cold" and "bureaucratic", further discouraging whistleblowers. According to the report of the State Attorney General's Office, there were only 91 convictions for this type of behavior in 2021: a third for racism and xenophobia. The Public Prosecutor's Office adds in its report that, in that year, a total of 25 acquittals were handed down at first instance.
Vox electoral poster at the Sol commuter train station, in Madrid, in April 2021.Marta Fernández Jara (Europa Press)
In 2021, the Audiencia de Madrid also saw no hate crime in a Vox campaign against migrant minors, which included messages against them on its website, social media profiles and on posters placed in Cercanías stations. The Prosecutor's Office considered that this vulnerable group, which was linked to crime, was put at risk. But the court, among its arguments, said: "[The issue is framed] in the legitimate ideological-partisan struggle in the framework of an electoral contest, where the verbal excesses committed by some and other political actors constitute a maxim of experience [...] The poster can also be interpreted as an electoral message to a group much larger than that of the 'menas'.
Betancourt, who spent a year and a half waiting for the sentence, encourages to denounce. It was not the first time he suffered racism – "when I arrived in Spain and worked in bars and nightclubs, the basic insult was 'black shit' – but in this case it was decided because the situation was affecting his work and his physical integrity, he recalls. "It's good that I know the voice of Vinicius case so that these things don't happen, not only in the world of sport. We have to denounce it and put a stop to it," he says.
Racist episodes in the bar, in the shops, in the doorway ...
Those affected denounce a daily racism – conscious or unconscious, subtle or very explicit (even with aggressions) – that occurs daily in the streets, in the means of transport, in bars, in police actions, in the Administration ...
"Shit China." A court in Terrassa (Barcelona) sentenced Christian B. C. to pay a fine of 1,300 euros for the episode he starred in a local bar. After entering the premises, "acting absolutely gratuitously and moved by contempt for people of Chinese origin", he insulted those who were inside shouting: "Shit Chinese!", "Sons of bitches!", "To your country!". One was punched in the face and fell unconscious; Another was hit in the side "repeatedly."
"Filthy black, go to your country." Alfonso R. L. insulted Francisca (fictitious name) for years when he crossed paths with her in the street or in the doorway of her house, in Guadarrama (Madrid). "Filthy black, go to your country. Black shit, miserable," he told her, as proven by the justice. Also, when she came across her in tents: "You had to be in the jungle!" The Madrid High Court sentenced him to one year in prison in October 2022.
"They're scamming us, monkeys." A court in Valencia considered it proven that Salvador M. G. went to his victim's bar in January 2022 to buy tobacco. According to the aggressor, the machine kept one euro and claimed it from the owner of the premises, who told him that he had to go to the company that owns the vending machine. But Salvador reacted with insults ("Black shit, I'm going to kill you"), while calling the police. In the presence of the agents, he continued with his attack: "Black shit, we are going to throw you out of the neighborhood. They are scamming us, monkeys," he told his victim, while commenting to the agents that "how they treated him like that being Spanish and those did not." The court sentenced him to six months' imprisonment.
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