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 prosecutor in the province of Barcelona said Tuesday it was studying the recent election campaign Catalan regional Vox, a game that mixes Spanish nationalism, populism and an uncompromising stance against illegal migration, after receiving complaints from various Islamic communities .
The groups, which represented more than 300 mosques in the northeast region, argued that Vox’s social media campaign under the hashtag #StopIslamization, which included a video mixing news about Muslims and an extremist attack in 2017 , was slander against the Muslims of Catalonia.
Barcelona prosecutor Pilar López told The Associated Press that the initial investigation, which will be protected by judicial secrecy, could take up to six months before deciding whether the campaign was tantamount to inciting hatred against Muslims. .
Vox parliamentary spokesman Iván Espinosa de los Monteros said on Tuesday that the party was proud of its actions. He said the campaign highlighted the risks “posed by some who do not accept the Western lifestyle and even come to overthrow it”.
Making forays into Catalan politics for the first time and sounding alarms across the political spectrum, Vox won 11 of the 135 seats in the regional parliament on Sunday, more than the other two center-right parties combined.
In a separate case, Madrid prosecutors opened an investigation into anti-Semitic messages expressed by a small group of extremists who gathered on Saturday to honor the memory of a Spanish platoon that joined Nazi troops during the Second World War. World War.
In videos distributed by the Russian news agency Ruptly about the march to the largest cemetery in Madrid, a woman delivers a heated speech referring to the “Jew” as “the enemy.”