The Secretary of Organization of Podemos, Pablo Fernández, announced this Friday that his party will register in Congress a battery of questions to clarify the “extremely violent and racist” arrest of former regional deputy Serigne Mbaye. In addition, they will present a non-legislative motion (PNL) with which they point to the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, as the maximum political responsible for what happened and demand a “truly independent” investigation so that “the pertinent responsibilities are cleared”.
Before the media at the doors of the Lower House, Fernández has denounced the “racist and harassment raids” which, he said, Mbaye has been suffering for some time, as well as those suffered by “thousands of migrant and racialized people” in Spain, something he has called “absolutely unacceptable”.
“We do not live in a normal and full democracy when daily raids based on an ethnic profile occur and also episodes of violence, of police brutality,” has stressed the leader of Podemos.
After expressing his "solidarity and support" to Mbaye and to the six people who were arrested by the National Police accused of resisting authority, Fernández has indicated that four of them have filed injury reports "as a consequence of that brutality and that police violence."
“He is detained because of the color of his skin. The video is public, practically all of Spain has seen it and in those images a police officer is seen putting a knee on Mbaye's head, while another is holding him by a leg and another by the arm. Images that denote extreme violence. I tell everyone to especially trust their eyes and what is seen because the images are clarifying and very revealing,” he recounted.
Demand political responsibilities and anti-racist training
Fernández has described what happened as “an absolute disgrace absolutely unacceptable and intolerable” and has demanded that “those responsible for that police brutality that we were able to observe fall”. “Evidently, the maximum responsible person is the Minister of the Interior. That is why we demand a radical turn and many explanations,” he added.
In the already registered PNL, the Podemos deputies in Congress ask, among other measures, for an independent investigation and the implementation of mechanisms so that the State Security Forces and Corps “stop carrying out racist raids based on ethnic profiling” and so that their personnel receive “training in anti-racism and human rights.”
According to the text of the initiative reported by Europa Press, they also demand that Marlaska guarantee that the actions of the Police and the Civil Guard “strictly adhere to the principles of equality, non-discrimination, and respect for fundamental rights” and that transparency mechanisms be implemented that include “the obligation for agents to state and record in writing the objective reasons that justify each stop or identification to prevent discriminatory actions”.
Contacts with the Government Delegation and criticisms of the raids
Asked about the contacts with the Executive, the Secretary of Organization of Podemos has explained that they went to the Government Delegation in Madrid to demand the immediate release of Mbaye and the rest of those arrested, who were finally released at dawn.
"It cannot be that in Spain these types of racist raids are normalized and that racialized and migrant people suffer racist raids in this country simply because of the color of their skin," Fernández reiterated, who pointed out "analogous behaviors" of Spanish agents with the functioning of the "Nazi police" of the American president, Donald Trump, in reference to ICE.
Battery of questions to the Government about the police operation
In the series of questions registered this Friday, Podemos asks the Government to clarify if any internal investigation has been opened or if reports have been requested from the General Directorate of the Police about these events, what measures it plans to adopt to prevent identifications or detentions based on ethnic or racial profiling and if it contemplates establishing obligations for agents to justify and record in writing the objective reasons for each identification.
The purple formation also asks about the specific training in human rights, equality of treatment and the fight against racism that police forces currently receive and about the assessment that the Executive makes of the repeated complaints from social organizations about the existence of racist raids in different parts of the country.