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 Barcelona provincial prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday it was investigating the recent campaign in a local Catalan election by Vox, a party that mixes Spanish nationalism, populism and an uncompromising stance against illegal migration, after receiving complaints from several Islamic communities .
The groups, which represent more than 300 mosques in the northeastern region, argued that Vox’s social media campaign under the label #StopIslamization, which contained a video containing news about Muslims and an extremist attack in 2017, was defamatory Muslims in 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 amounts to hatred against Muslims.
Vox parliamentary spokesman Iván Espinosa de los Monteros said on Tuesday that the party was proud of its actions. The campaign highlights the risks, he believes, “brought on by some who do not accept the Western lifestyle and even undermine it.”
Vox, which has made inroads into Catalan politics for the first time and raised alarms across the political spectrum, won 11 of the regional parliament’s 135 seats on Sunday, more than the other two center-right parties combined.
In a separate case, prosecutors in Madrid launched an investigation into anti-Semitic messages uttered by a small group of extremists gathered on Saturday to honor the memory of a Spanish platoon that joined Nazi troops during World War II. .
In videos circulated by the Russian news agency Ruptly of the march to Madrid’s largest cemetery, a woman delivers a fiery speech referring to ‘the Jew’ as ‘the enemy’.