The Podemos MEP, Isa Serra has accused the Spanish Police of establishing “racial profiles” and exercise a “excessive and disproportionate use of force” against black people. During a speech on January 16 in the European Parliament, the parliamentarian denounced that, today, there is “police violence” in Spain and went one step further by directly accusing the Spanish police of “provoke”, on December 29, the death of a mantero in Seville.
“The mantero of Senegalese origin Mamouth Bakhoum died in Seville, my country, drowned in the river because he was chased by the policesimply for selling four measly t-shirts. This is not an isolated event and surviving cannot be a crime“, Serra denounced before the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament. And he did so after pointing out that, “unfortunately”, in our country we also have to talk about “police violence against black and racialized people.” .
The deputy did not hesitate to use the term “institutional racism” to even talk about the tragic shipwreck that occurred last Thursday, in which 50 migrants, mostly of Pakistani origin, lost their lives. Immediately afterwards, he charged against the Spanish police officers, whom accused of acting with “brutality and impunity” against black people for reasons of “discrimination”. Which, in his opinion, is “everyday life in our countries.”
Campaigns against agents
At this point, we must remember that both the Seville Local Police Union and CSIF have already denounced the Adelante Andalucía spokesperson in the Andalusian Parliament to the Prosecutor’s Office, José Ignacio García, for “defamation”. And the leader of this formation not only accused the officers of “police repression and institutional racism” But he questioned his motivations and his actions during the incident: “What’s the point of chasing a worker for more than a kilometer – the police, on a motorcycle – for wearing 34 t-shirts and that we have to believe that A 43-year-old boy, father of a family, jumped into the Guadalquivir River? We want to see the video of how it entered the water“.
Now, Podemos takes up the gauntlet in Europe to brand the Spanish agents as “racist.” Although these accusations are not new. Just go back to 2020, with Irene Montero at the head of the Ministry of Equalityto remember that campaign that explained how to act if you were a victim of racist aggression or discrimination. The key to that campaign was found in one of those images, in which called the State Security Forces and Corps “racist” and “xenophobic”“. In it, a young black man was seen with the following testimony: “I have been identified by my skin color or other physical features without an objective reason.”
Just two years later, the then leader of En Comú Podem, Ismael Cortés, returned to the fray and demanded that the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, detail the measures adopted to prevent police controls from being carried out based on racial or ethnic profiling. He did so accompanied by the former Madrid deputy Serigne Mbaye. The same one who a month before had reported that the Police stopped him and “searched” him on a train to Valencia for “racism.”
Coincidentally, on January 13, a judge summoned Mbayé to testify, after the Spanish Confederation of Police (CEP) filed a complaint against him for accusing the Police of being racist during an intervention in Lavapiés, in which two young men were arrested. Senegalese. Thus, the Court of Instruction number 7 of Madrid has called the former deputy of the Madrid Assembly to testify on January 28 at 11:30 a.m.