Disinformation fuels hate speech against foreigners in Spain

News report by Hanadi Watfa MADRID, July 26 (KUNA) -- Spain has experienced waves of violence, rioting acts and protests due to misleading video footages exploited by far-right parties against migration and foreigners to serve their electoral agendas.
Supporters of the "Vox" Party posted on their social media a misleading video showing an elderly man, aged 68 from Murcia, southeast Spain, who was attacked by unknown people who claimed that they are migrants.
Thus, a violent wave of protests erupted over some days, and security forces were deployed to deter extremist groups.
The far-right parties exploited this incident to post widely a misleading video and incite racial hate against foreigners, thus protests in Toree Pacheco were staged, causing chaos and rioting acts across the city.
However the true video was taken two months ago in Almeria, in Andalusia, 200 kms away from Toree Pacheco showing an old man who was violently beaten by some Spanish people not migrants.
Some false video footages, of former incidents in Spain and beyond, have been swiftly posted pushing a large numbers of extremists to gather in Toree Pacheco, calling for the expulsion of migrants amid panic and chaos of the city's residents.
Therefore, the Spanish government took action by dispatching huge security reinforcement of police and civil guard, arresting 14 people, including extremist groups' members and those running the pages fueling hate and violence.
The interior ministry also deployed hundreds of additional security forces, anti-riot units and drones to deter any suspicious movement and extremists.
This serious incident created a clear split in political speech, and high security and social tensions that caused true fears of hate transfer of incidents took place in Paris, Brussels and Berlin into some others Spanish areas containing large numbers of migrants.
The incident happened a few days after the Vox Party, the third largest parliamentary force, had called for the expulsion of eight million migrants out of Spain.
Toree Pacheco, one of the Spanish cities, has 39,910 population of varied nationalities, 11649 of them are foreigners, making up 29.2 percent.
This makes big challenges related to cultural and social integration, and the provision of main services mainly in poor areas.
Spain's government categorically condemned violence, saying what happened in the city is an attack on "peaceful coexistence", stressing zero tolerance towards hate speech.
Moroccan associations and civil society bodes in Murcia affirmed that the incident in Torre Pacheco was caused by a long-term negligence policy regarding integration, saying that hundreds of migrants suffer marginalization and the lack of good education for their children who were born in Spain and speak Spanish.
Funded by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID affiliated to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bosco Global, and development and youth societies prepared a report saying that Spain registered 600 warnings on misleading videos in the last six months about the issues of migration and racism.
The report warned that such misinformation directly affects psychological health of migrants and social coherence, noting this may lead to tangible violent acts like what has seen in the recent unrest in Toree Pacheco. (end) hnd.hm