Category: Spain
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Ceuta and Melilla: externalised border control, systematic violence
CN: this article contains discussion of xenophobia and violence OPINION Between 17 and 19 May 2021, some 10 000 migrants crossed the border into Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Morocco had relaxed its border controls in Ceuta in retaliation against Spain’s decision to allow Brahim Gali, a leader of the Polisario Front – a militant organisation opposed…
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Gender violence: Spain’s unending nightmare
OPINION The allegations of sexual assault made against a far-right member of the Spanish Parliament have shone the spotlight once more on the country’s institutionalised problem with gender violence. For decades, activists have been clamouring for an overhaul of the political and legal approach to the question of sexual consent and the plague of gender-based…
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Former far-right Vox MP investigated for sex crime
REPORT Sexual violence strikes Spanish politics again, as former far-right Vox MP, Carlos Fernández-Roca Suárez, is investigated for a sexual offence. On 13th November 2020 Fernández-Roca announced his resignation from Spain’s Parliament using a now-deleted Twitter account, following the accusation: ‘On Wednesday, after learning of the complaint made against me, I immediately and voluntarily made myself…
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Spain’s proposed abortion reforms: a small yet welcome step
OPINION After a court ruling in Poland imposed a near-total ban on abortions in October 2020, the pro-life versus pro-choice debate has been pushed back into the European spotlight. In Spain, a country which shares Poland’s ties with Catholicism, abortion also remains a controversial political issue. Yet there is hope in Spain that more women…
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The shameful and systematic neglect of Spain’s migrant farm workers
OPINION In the greenhouses of southern Spain, thousands of undocumented migrants toil away in unsafe conditions to cultivate the fresh produce that lines the shelves of European supermarkets. Yet those who work to feed Europe have been forgotten about in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, forced to live and work in saturated and unsanitary…
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Juan Carlos I: a slow but steady fall from grace
REPORT Spain continues to re-evaluate the legacy of its former monarch, King Juan Carlos I. The man once revered as the architect of Spanish democracy has become mired in allegations of financial misconduct. In early August, the former monarch announced in a letter to his son, King Felipe VI, his decision to leave Spain, in…
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