There were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings. In the event of the killing of an individual by security forces, the internal affairs division of the corresponding agency is responsible for investigating whether the killing was justifiable.

There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.

The constitution and laws prohibit such practices. There were reports of police mistreatment; courts dismissed some of the reports. The constitution provides for an ombudsman to investigate claims of police abuse, and the Office of the Ombudsman serves as the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture. In 2019 the ombudsman received four complaints of police mistreatment and 68 complaints of verbal abuse. Impunity was not a significant problem in the security forces.

There were multiple reports of excess use of force by law enforcement during the government-decreed state of alarm from March 14 through June 20 enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Defend Those Who Defend reported it registered 70 cases of mistreatment of individuals by state security forces. The NGO Rights International Spain reported several cases of excessive use of force documented on video showing police slapping, shoving, or kicking individuals.

A video posted online in March by Amnesty International showed police officers in Bilbao shoving a young man of North African descent, hitting him with a baton, and later hitting and arresting his mother after she told the police he was suffering from poor mental health. The Basque regional government opened an internal investigation into the use of force in the incident. The investigation continued as of November. Neighbors who filmed the incident were fined for “unauthorized use of images of law enforcement officials” and “lack of respect for law enforcement officials,” which Amnesty International denounced as restricting the right to freedom of expression.

In addition to its concerns about the police’s “unlawful use of force in the enforcement of lockdown measures,” Amnesty International in June cited concerns about the “lack of prompt, impartial, and thorough investigations into allegations of unlawful use of force as well as about discriminatory police checks.” In June the government detailed in a parliamentary response that it had opened proceedings against two civil guards and four national police officers for irregular actions during the state of alarm and was investigating approximately 30 additional complaints.

There were some reports regarding prison and detention center conditions that raised human rights concerns. NGOs reported extreme overcrowding at some temporary migrant detention centers due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the periodic visit of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to the country in September, the press reported the CPT alleged during the visit mistreatment of an inmate in the Estremera prison in Madrid. On September 9, the inmate was reportedly placed in an isolation cell after he became unruly. When he was released, a medical examination found bruises on his buttocks, legs, soles of his feet, and ankles that had not been present when he was reviewed by a doctor before being admitted to the isolation cell. Prison leadership opened an internal investigation, and the Ministry of the Interior referred the incident to the court.

The UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT) reported in October 2019 that, during its 2017 visit, it found that authorities in detention centers and other places of confinement frequently resorted to “measures of mechanical restraint and other coercive means.” Subsequent to that visit, the Ministry of the Interior updated its protocols, restricting the use of mechanical confinement to very limited parameters. In his 2019 report, the ombudsman reported that the prison administration officials informed the ombudsman that the use of mechanical restraints decreased, with 189 instances from January to April of 2019 compared with 322 instances during the same period in 2018. The use of mechanical restraints gained renewed attention after a video of the July 2019 death of 18-year-old Ilias Tahiri in a juvenile detention center in Almeria was made public in June. The video showed six prison officials strapping Moroccan-born Tahiri face down to a bed with his hands bound behind his back while two officials knelt on his back until he stopped breathing. In October a judge reopened the investigation into Tahiri’s death, looking at possible charges of reckless homicide, after his family appealed the judge’s January ruling that his death was an accident.

In its report on prison conditions in Catalonia released on February 4, the CPT reported complaints in all four prisons it visited of physical abuse of prisoners by prison officials, including slaps, punches, and blows with batons. The report alleged Catalan regional police officers subjected some detainees to an unauthorized restraint called a “sandwich” (entailing restraint of ankles and being placed between two plastic mattresses joined by strips of Velcro). The CPT expressed concerns about the practices of tying agitated prisoners to beds with straps and of forced medication of immobilized prisoners, noting they can cause serious injuries. The CPT also noted admission procedures failed to consider gender-specific needs, including detection of sexual abuse or other gender-based violence inflicted prior to admission.

Physical Conditions: The COVID-19 pandemic put considerable stress on the temporary internment centers for foreigners (CETIs) in Ceuta and Melilla, which housed irregular migrants pending their repatriation who crossed the border fence from Morocco. A CETI in Melilla was at nearly double its capacity as of September, prompting local authorities temporarily to house migrants at the city’s bullring alongside the homeless and Moroccan nationals unable to repatriate after Morocco closed its borders in March. (See section 2.f. for more information).

The CPT’s February report on its visit to Catalonia noted Catalan regional police detention centers lacked access to natural light and outdoor space for exercise and had inadequate artificial lighting, poor ventilation, and insufficient access to drinking water and personal hygiene products.

Administration: Authorities conducted investigations of credible allegations of mistreatment.

Independent Monitoring: The government generally permitted monitoring by independent nongovernmental observers, including the Office of the Ombudsman, which is also the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, the CPT, and the SPT, in accordance with their standard operating procedures. In 2019 the ombudsman made 106 visits to places where individuals were deprived of their liberty to assess conditions of confinement. During the year the ombudsman conducted primarily virtual visits to prisons and detention centers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The CPT made a scheduled periodic visit to the country on September 13 to 28. A report of its findings was not public at year’s end.

The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention and provide for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention in court. The government generally observed these requirements.

Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees

The law permits police to apprehend suspects for probable cause or with a warrant based on sufficient evidence as determined by a judge. With certain exceptions police may not hold a suspect for more than 72 hours without a hearing. In certain rare instances involving acts of terrorism, the law allows authorities, with the authorization of a judge, to detain persons for up to five days prior to arraignment. Authorities generally informed detainees promptly of the charges against them. These rights were respected. The country has a functioning bail system, and the courts released defendants on bail unless they believed the defendants might flee or be a threat to public safety. If a potential criminal sentence is less than three years, the judge may decide to set bail or release the accused on his own recognizance. If the potential sentence is more than three years, the judge must set bail. The law provides detainees the right to consult a lawyer of their choice. If the detainee is indigent, the government appoints legal counsel.

The law allows incommunicado detention when there is a threat to the detainee’s life or physical integrity, or a need to avoid compromising criminal proceedings. Under the law incommunicado detention can only be applied by judicial order and is limited to 10 days’ duration. In certain rare instances involving acts of terrorism, a judge may order incommunicado or solitary detention for the entire duration of police custody. The law stipulates that terrorism suspects held incommunicado have the right to an attorney and medical care, but it does not allow them either to choose an attorney or to see a physician of their choice. The court-appointed lawyer is present during police and judicial proceedings, but detainees do not have the right to confer in private with the lawyer.

The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected judicial independence and impartiality.

The constitution and law provide for the right to a fair and public trial, and an independent judiciary generally enforced this right. Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence, the right to be informed promptly and in detail of the charges against them, the right to a fair and public trial without undue delay, and the right to be present at their trial. Defendants have the right to an attorney of their choice. If the defendant is indigent, the government provides an attorney. Defendants and their attorneys have adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense. Government policy is to provide free interpretation as necessary from the moment the defendant is charged through all appeals, although there were reports that translations of charges and interpretation throughout trials were not always provided. During the trial defendants may confront prosecution or plaintiff witnesses, and present their own witnesses and evidence. Defendants may not be compelled to testify or to confess guilt, and they have the right of appeal.

On March 8, the UN special rapporteur for minority issues expressed concerns about the restrictions and criminal charges against Catalan politicians and civil society activists involved in the October 2017 “referendum.” The special rapporteur called on the government to abide by its legal obligations to protect the human rights of minorities, including the Catalan minority, especially regarding the freedoms of expression; peaceful assembly, association; and participation in public life. The ombudsman rejected the categorization of the Catalan-speaking population as a minority. The special rapporteur agreed with conclusions of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that the extended detentions and subsequent convictions of Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, the two civil society activists convicted in the case, as well as the other Catalan political leaders in prison, were to intimidate them because of their political views.

On May 13, Amnesty International criticized the Supreme Court’s interpretation of sedition as “excessively broad” and alleged it resulted in the “criminalization of acts of protest.” On November 3, it reiterated its call for the government to release Sanchez and Cuixart.

In July the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reiterated its previous recommendation to release seven of the nine Catalan proindependence prisoners convicted of sedition by the Supreme Court for their role in the October 2017 “referendum” on Catalan independence. Representatives of several Catalan national political parties called those convicted “political prisoners,” but neither the government nor any international human rights NGO supported this claim.

Individuals or organizations may bring civil lawsuits seeking damages for a human rights violation. The complainant may also pursue an administrative resolution. Persons may appeal court decisions involving alleged violations of the European Convention on Human Rights to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after they exhaust all avenues of appeal in national courts.

The country endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration but has no immovable property restitution laws because, as the European Shoah Legacy Institute notes, private and communal property were not seized from Spanish Jewish communities during the Holocaust. The government participated in the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets and is a signatory to the International Council of Museums Code of Ethics. Some Jewish groups say that the government has not sufficiently investigated the movement of Nazi-looted art works through the country or sufficiently researched existing art collections in Spain to ascertain whether they include works of Nazi-looted art. The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain reported there were no existing or prior cases of compensation or restitution in the country stemming from the Holocaust. The Department of State’s Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act report to Congress, released publicly on July 29, 2020, can be found on the Department’s website: https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/.

The constitution prohibits such actions. On October 22, a court in Barcelona agreed to investigate a complaint filed by Catalan regional parliament president Roger Torrent and regional parliamentarian Ernest Maragall that their cell phones were surveilled in 2019 using a software program developed by the Israeli company NSO Group. Amnesty International called on the government to publish information about any contracts it has with digital surveillance companies.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibits rape, including spousal rape; it does not distinguish between rapes of women and men. The government generally enforced the law effectively, although there were reports that judicial authorities dismissed cases if victims were not physically present in the country. The penalty for rape is six to 12 years in prison. Additional charges, including if the victim was a minor or if the assailant ridiculed the victim, may add to the length of the overall prison sentence. The law also prohibits violence against women and sets prison sentences of six months to a year for domestic violence, threats of violence, or violations of restraining orders, with longer sentences if serious injuries result.

The law establishes “the mere act of aggression by a man against a woman who is his partner or former partner already constitutes an act of gender-based violence”; there is no requirement to establish “the intent to dominate.” Amnesty International reported this change resulted in a two-tier system for sexual assault victims, with increased protections for those assaulted by a partner.

On July 31, the Ministry of the Interior reported a 5 percent decrease in the number of reported rapes during the first six months of the year. According to a joint report by the Observatory against Gender-Based and Domestic Violence and the General Council of the Judiciary, there were 51,790 verdicts in gender-based violence cases in 2019 with a 70 percent conviction rate. According to the Ministry of Equality’s Survey of Violence against Women 2019 published on September 11, more than 57 percent of the nearly 10,000 women surveyed reported being the victim of violence related to their gender, with nearly 20 percent reporting experiencing such violence within the last year.

Amnesty International cited continuing concerns with investigations of sexual assault and lenient sentencing for offenders. Lack of training on sexual assault cases for police, forensic investigators, and judges was a problem. There were reports that police officers were sometimes dismissive of rape allegations involving acquaintances and did not actively pursue such cases. Differing protocols for handling sexual assault cases around the country led to inconsistent access to justice for sexual assault victims. In Madrid a victim is required first to file a formal complaint and then visit a designated hospital in order for the hospital to activate protocols to collect criminal evidence. In Catalonia a victim may go to any hospital, and the hospital will activate the protocols. In Andalusia the situation varied based on city. Amnesty International also reported a lack of clear sentencing guidelines and varying sentences for sexual crimes based almost entirely at the discretion of the judge.

In several cases police leaked allegations of sexual assault to the press, which often excoriated women who alleged sexual assault, publishing without their permission their names, photos, and intimate details of their claims and lives. The press often questioned the validity of their claims and veracity of their statements.

On March 18, the Superior Court of Castile and Leon overturned the rape conviction of Raul Calvo and reduced the convictions of Carlos Cuadrado and Victor Rodriguez from rape to sexual abuse for their role in the 2017 sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in what was known as the “Arandina case.” In December 2019 the three former Arandina Football Club soccer players had been sentenced to a combined 38 years in prison. The March court decision set Calvo free and reduced the sentences of Cuadrado and Rodriguez to four and three years, respectively. Amnesty International, the Clara Campoamor Association, and other victims’ rights groups condemned the reversal.

According to the government’s delegate for gender-based and domestic violence, as of December 9, partners or former partners were responsible for the deaths of 42 women. According to the General Council of the Judiciary, 31,375 cases of gender-based violence were open for prosecution in 2019. The Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence reported 168,057 complaints of gender-based violence in 2019. There were 36,185 allegations of gender-based violence in the first quarter of the year. Independent media and government agencies generally paid close attention to gender-based violence.

A 24-hour toll-free national hotline advised battered women on finding shelter and other local assistance. Police also alerted female victims of gender-based violence of any changes in prison sentences of their attackers. According to the delegate of the government for gender-based violence, between March 14 and May 15, during the nationwide lockdown under the state of alarm, there was an almost 62 percent increase in calls to the domestic violence hotline compared with the same period in 2019.

The Ministry of Equality published a guide for women suffering from domestic violence during the lockdown that included information on whom to call for emergency, legal, and psychological aid, as well as what to do if someone was threatened or in danger.

In November the Supreme Court ruled that women have the right, provided they meet other requirements, to petition for a widow’s pension even if, due to domestic violence, they were not living with their partner at the time of his death. The ruling allows unmarried women the same rights as married women in petitioning for the pension.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C and authorizes courts to prosecute residents of the country who committed this crime in the country or anywhere in the world. Doctors must ask parents residing in the country who originate from countries that practice FGM/C to sign a declaration promising their daughter(s) will not undergo FGM/C when they visit countries where the practice is common. Once a family returns to the country, a doctor must examine the girl(s) again and may start legal action against the parents if examination finds that the minors underwent FGM/C during their trip.

The State Plan against Gender Violence includes FGM/C as a form of gender-based violence.

Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace, but few cases came to trial. The punishment in minor cases may be between three and five months in jail or fines of six to eight months’ salary. Harassment continued to be a problem, according to media reporting. The Ministry of Equality’s Survey of Violence against Women noted more than 40 percent of women reported having been sexually harassed over their lifetime, with more than 17 percent reporting harassment from a work colleague. More than 15 percent of the women surveyed reported being the victim of stalking.

In March the Republican Left of Catalonia party announced the removal of Carles Garcias Hernandez from his position as chief of staff to the regional government’s foreign affairs counselor after multiple female colleagues accused him of sexual harassment and sexist behavior. In July, King Juan Carlos University suspended one of its professors for 13 months without pay after several female students accused him of sexual harassment and showed the university sexually explicit messages he had sent them. In addition to the suspension, the university announced it would publish a new antiharassment policy.

Reproductive Rights: Couples and individuals have the right to decide the number, spacing, and timing of their children; to manage their reproductive health; and to have access to the information and means to do so, free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. The government provides access to sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence.

Coercion in Population Control: On December 18, an amendment to the Organic Law entered into force to prohibit forced or nonconsensual sterilization of persons with disabilities. There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.

Discrimination: Under the law women enjoy the same rights as men. The government generally enforced the law effectively.

Children

Birth Registration: Citizenship is derived from one’s parents. All children born in the country, except children of diplomats and children whose parents’ country of origin gives them nationality, are registered as citizens. When a child does not acquire the parents’ nationality, the government may grant it.

Child Abuse: The law provides protections against various forms of child abuse. Those accused of sexual abuses involving minors receive larger penalties. For example, in cases of sexual abuse, instead of one to four years of imprisonment, the penalty increases to four to 10 years when the victim is a child. Cases of sexual aggression, which normally receive six to 12 years in jail, are punished with 12 to 15 years in cases involving minors.

According to the government’s delegate for gender-based and domestic violence, as of December 9, either a parent or a parent’s partner were responsible for the deaths three children.

In July the Catalan regional government opened a center in Tarragona to assist minors who are victims of sexual abuse. The center, the first of its kind in the country, provided integrated and child-centered services for children and adolescents exposed to violence and sexual abuse.

Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The minimum age of marriage is 16 years for minors living on their own. Underage marriage is not uncommon in the Romani community. In April a regional court in Murcia sentenced a Romani man to 10 years’ imprisonment and five years of supervised probation for continuous sexual abuse related to the 2015 marriage between the then 26-year-old man and a then 15-year-old girl.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law criminalizes the “abuse and sexual attack of minors” younger than age 13 and sets the penalty at imprisonment from two to 15 years, depending on the nature of the crime. Individuals who contact children younger than age 13 through the internet for the purpose of sexual exploitation face imprisonment for one to three years. Authorities enforced the law.

The minimum age for consensual sex in the country is 16. The law defines sexual acts committed against persons younger than age 16 as nonconsensual sexual abuse and provides for sentences from two to 15 years in prison, depending on the circumstances.

The penalty for recruiting children or persons with disabilities into prostitution is imprisonment from one to five years. The penalty for subjecting children to prostitution is imprisonment from two to 10 years, depending on the age of the victim and the existence of violence or intimidation. The penalty for child sex trafficking is from five to eight years’ imprisonment.

The law prohibits using a minor “to prepare any type of pornographic material” as well as producing, selling, distributing, displaying, or facilitating the production, sale, dissemination, or exhibition of “any type” of child pornography by “any means.” The penalty is one to five years’ imprisonment; if the child is younger than age 13, the length of imprisonment is five to nine years. The law also penalizes knowingly possessing child pornography.

A registry for sex offenders provides a basis to bar them from activities in which they could be in the presence of minors.

The sex trafficking of teenage girls into prostitution remained a problem. See also the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The Jewish community numbered approximately 40,000 to 50,000 persons.

The law considers denial and justification of genocide to be a crime if it incites violence, with penalties that range from one to four years in prison.

The Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience reported that during 2019 there were three instances of religiously motivated aggression targeting Jews, all cases of attacks against Jewish property.

According to the Observatory of Anti-Semitism of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, anti-Semitic incidents included hate speech on social media and anti-Semitic graffiti. In May a regional court in Ceuta sentenced a man convicted of inciting hatred against Israel and Jewish communities on social networks to a one-year imprisonment (suspended due to lack of prior convictions), a fine, and a three-year prohibition from working in educational or sports vocations. In mid-March the observatory noted an increase in anti-Semitic speech on social media, including blaming Jews for creating the COVID-19 pandemic.

There were multiple instances of anti-Semitic graffiti. On September 9, the Cartagena Association for Historic Memory denounced the defacement with swastikas, stars of David, and “Jews out” graffiti of a municipal monument dedicated to Spanish Republicans from Cartagena who fled to France after the Spanish Civil War and were subsequently deported to Nazi concentration camps. In January a building at Alfonso X the Wise University in Villanueva de la Canada was defaced with graffiti that read, “I command, kill Jews” and a swastika. A wall at a nearby park was defaced with swastikas and graffiti that read, “free Palestine” and “kill a Jew.”

In February during separate carnival celebrations, participants dressed as Nazis and Holocaust victims during town parades. In Badajoz a 160-member group paraded dressed in suits split down the middle of half Nazi soldier and half concentration camp prisoner, choreographed to march and dance together to pop music. Props included a tank, metal fences, and a banner that displayed a swastika and Star of David together and signaled the gateway to the Auschwitz camp. In Campo de Criptana, a 130-member group dressed as Jewish prisoners, Nazi officers, and women in red coats akin to costumes from the movie Schindler’s List and danced to disco music with props that included a gas-chamber float embellished with two crematorium chimneys. The Israeli embassy in Spain condemned the Campo de Criptana parade, stating it made a “mockery of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.” The Campo de Criptana City Council also issued a statement condemning the parade. Both groups of participants stated their intention was to pay tribute to Holocaust victims.

Government institutions promoted religious pluralism, integration, and understanding of Jewish communities and history, but their efforts did not reach all of the country’s autonomous regions. Following a July 20 meeting with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, First Vice President Carmen Calvo announced that the government would employ the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism. This move reaffirmed the country’s 2016 vote to endorse the working definition under the previous government.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Persons with Disabilities

The law prohibits with fines discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government generally enforced these provisions effectively. The law requires private companies with more than 50 employees to hire persons with disabilities for at least 2 percent of their jobs.

In July the interior minister published the Action Protocol for Law Enforcement Agencies on Hate Crimes to guarantee the equality of and prevent discrimination against vulnerable groups from abuse based on, inter alia, intellectual and physical disabilities. This follows the Interior Ministry’s January 2019 action plan to protect vulnerable groups.

According to the State Employment Public Service’s 2020 report, in 2019 more than 65 percent of persons with disabilities were unemployed, more than twice the percentage of the general population. Percentages increased with age and with the degree of visible disability.

The law mandates access to buildings for persons with disabilities. While the government generally enforced these provisions, levels of assistance and accessibility varied among regions.

In August the Spanish Confederation of Personal with Physical and Organic Disabilities (CERMI) reported significant challenges in providing assistance to persons with disabilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This included the failure to provide educational and personal support such as in-person consultations with teachers and lack of access to sign language interpreters, communication mediators, and physiotherapists. CERMI also reported the lack of curriculum adaptations for students with disabilities for remote learning. It noted that the lack of psychological and emotional support negatively affected both the physical and mental health of students with disabilities. The situation for women and girls was particularly difficult, according to CERMI, in part because of higher rates of poverty and increased social exclusion.

On September 21, the OHCHR Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities determined that the country violated the right to inclusive education of a child with Down syndrome by sending the child to a special education center over the objections of his parents. The committee concluded the government failed to assess the child’s specific requirements and to take reasonable steps that could have allowed him to remain in mainstream education.

In July the interior minister issued the Action Protocol for Law Enforcement Agencies on Hate Crimes, which seeks to guarantee the equality of and prevent the discrimination against vulnerable groups based on, inter alia, national origin and ethnicity. The protocol orders law enforcement officers to avoid the use of terms or expressions that may be perceived as offensive or pejorative. For example, law enforcement officers are instructed to avoid using racially based word to address individuals belonging or appearing to belong to minority groups. The protocol followed the Interior Ministry’s January 2019 action plan to protect vulnerable groups from abuse through increased training for security forces to identify hate crimes; digital tools to identify and counteract hate speech on social media; an increase in coordinating efforts with human rights NGOs; increasing attention for victims of hate crimes; and amplifying the legal response to these incidents.

The Ministry of the Interior reported 515 hate crimes linked to racism (20 percent of the total) in 2019, an increase of 20.8 percent from 2018. The regions of Catalonia, Melilla, Navarra, and the Basque Country had the highest numbers of hate crimes according to the ministry’s data.

During the state of alarm, some civil society organizations noted the Law on the Protection of Citizen Security was applied inconsistently and arbitrarily, with law enforcement officers disproportionately stopping and sanctioning persons belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups as well as immigrants. The report Racism and Xenophobia during the State of Alarm in Spain released in June by the NGO Rights International Spain noted a spike in racist speech and actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report registered 70 instances of alleged racism during confinement committed by National Police, Civil Guard, the Basque regional police, and the Barcelona (municipal) Urban Guard. The report alleged the Ministry of the Interior did not initiate “prompt, exhaustive, and effective investigations into all acts of brutality and excessive use of force by the Security Forces.” The report cited numerous media reports of verbal attacks against those of Chinese or Asian decent during the state of alarm, including blaming individuals for the COVID-19 epidemic. The Gitano Secretariat Foundation (FSG) reported the dissemination of numerous anti-Roma hate messages via social media and WhatsApp during the state of alarm, such as messages warning individuals not to go to markets where Romani families sold their wares.

The UN special rapporteur for minority issues in a March 9 report stated that, although authorities took positive steps to train police to reduce racial profiling, minority groups still reported incidents of harassment, profiling, intimidation, and occasional violence. Marginalized groups including immigrants, persons of African descent, and Roma told the rapporteur they mistrusted and feared police and the judiciary.

In the country’s first investigation for glorifying white supremacist terrorism, on September 11, Catalan regional police arrested two individuals in the towns of Lleida and Alicante (Valencia) for inciting hatred against various groups of foreigners, glorifying racist terrorism, and calling for attacks inspired by the massacre that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand.

In February the European Commission noted that immigrants from outside the EU and Roma continued to face integration challenges. Persons not born in the EU faced a nearly four times greater risk of severe material deprivation than natives and were considerably more exposed to precarious working conditions and to in-work poverty. In his February 7 report following his visit to the country, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights expressed concern that 72 percent of Romani, immigrant, and economically disadvantaged children studied in de facto segregated schools that had lower assessment scores and higher rates of grade repetition, failure, and dropping out. The UN special rapporteur for minority issues also expressed concern about school segregation affecting the Romani community, specifically public schools in Seville, which had a 90-percent Romani student population.

The Romani community is the largest minority group in the country, with an estimated 750,000 persons. Three representatives of Romani heritage were elected to the national congress in November 2019 elections, down from four elected in the April 2019 elections. The FSG reported significant integration challenges for the Romani community, including a high poverty rate (86 percent live below the poverty line, with 46 percent in extreme poverty), 52 percent unemployment rate (60 percent among Romani women), and 64 percent dropout rate for children in secondary education. The UN special rapporteur for minority issues stated the regulation of street trade, a central economic activity for Roma, was arbitrarily applied to Roma in different areas of the country and sometimes resulted in discriminatory treatment. According to a November 2019 FSG report, there were 334 cases of discrimination against Roma in 2018, 102 more than in 2017.

According to the FSG, 44 percent of Romani families, typically dependent on daily wages, struggled to afford food during the March to June state of alarm. The FSG reported significant educational challenges for Romani children, including de facto school segregation in many cities and curriculums that either excluded the Romani community or promoted stereotypes. Lack of access to internet connections at home prevented many Romani children from participating in remote learning due to the state of alarm.

The UN special rapporteur for minority issues expressed concern about the increase in Catalonia of hate speech against Catalans as a minority group in social and other media as a result of the protests following the October 2019 sentencing of 12 Catalan politicians and civil society activists. The special rapporteur also reported that politicians and others outside the region had begun to paint Catalans as traitors who had to be dealt with severely, at times using violent language. The national ombudsman rejected the categorization of the Catalan-speaking population as a minority.

The report For Rent? Racism and Xenophobia in the Housing Market published in October by the NGO Provivienda noted discrimination in the housing rental market against immigrants and racial and ethnic minorities in Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, and Granada. According to the report, seven of 10 of the real estate agencies contacted permitted clients to discriminate explicitly, and the other three permitted subtler forms of discrimination.

The country’s antidiscrimination laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and the government enforced the law. The law penalizes those who provoke discrimination, hate, or violence based on sexual orientation with up to three years’ imprisonment. The law also prohibits denial or disqualification of employment based on sexual orientation and the formation of associations that promote discrimination, hate, or violence against others based on their sexual orientation. The law may consider hatred against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons an aggravating circumstance in crimes.

The interior minister’s Action Protocol for Law Enforcement Agencies on Hate Crimes published in July sought to guarantee the equality of and prevent the discrimination against vulnerable groups based on, inter alia, sexual orientation and identity.

The number of homophobic attacks continued to rise in Catalonia. The Observatory against Homophobia of Catalonia reported 117 incidents as of September, a 20 percent increase from the same timeframe in 2019. According to the Barcelona Hate Crimes Prosecutor, law enforcement agencies in Barcelona also identified a 59 percent increase in the number of complaints received on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Observatory against Homophobia of Madrid reported 321 incidents in 2019.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, 1,598 hate crimes were reported in 2019, an 8.2 percent increase from 2018. Of these, 320 cases involved physical injuries and 350 involved threats.

According to a report from the Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience, in 2019 there were 175 instances of religiously motivated violence, compared with 200 in 2018.

The interior minister’s Action Protocol for Law Enforcement Agencies on Hate Crimes published in July recalled the need to guarantee the equality and nondiscrimination of persons due to their special vulnerability, whether due to the lack of a family environment; abuse suffered; status as a refugee, asylum seeker or subsidiary protection; or any other relevant characteristic or circumstance.

On October 21, the national police joined the NGO Legalitas Foundation in a new campaign aimed at young persons under the slogan #SayNoToHate with the goal of raising awareness about preventing hate crimes.