There were 546 reported incidents of Islamophobia in Spain in 2017, according to a report released Friday by the Citizens’ Platform Against Islamophobia (PCI).
The most frequent type of incident cited were those of “defamation, slander, and libel,” in which Muslim men were accused of being “violent, sexist, chauvinists, pedophiles, backwards, intolerant, or terrorists,” while Muslim women were characterized as being “submissive, oppressed, ignorant, or backwards.”
The second leading category of incidents was those of discrimination or negation of rights. The report used the European Union’s definition of discrimination, citing it as the “conduct, action, or omission by which a person is treated less favorably than another in a comparable situation and when an apparently neutral provision, criterion, or practice places people at a particular disadvantage with respect to others.”
Other types of attack include harassment, organized campaigns, fake news, verbal and written threats, and property damage.
The rising trends in incidents occurred both online and “on the streets.” Of the 546 cases, 160 of them occurred offline and 386 of them occurred online on social media platforms and various news sites.
According to the report, Catalonia leads in the latter category with the most number of Islamophobic incidents reported in the last year. Of the 160 total incidents that occurred “offline,” 31.88 percent of them occurred in Catalonia.
According to the report, a rise in Islamophobic incidents occurs immediately following terror attacks, citing the 2017 attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils as a possible explanation for why Catalonia leads in the number of incidents by a considerable margin.
In August of last year 14 people were killed and 130 injured when a van drove into one of Barcelona’s most popular streets, Las Ramblas. A second attack followed eight hours later in Cambrils, a small town on the coast of Catalonia, where several civilians were injured when a car drove into pedestrian walkways. Police confirmed both as terrorist attacks.
Following Catalonia’s lead, Andalucía and Valencia topped the chart of incidents with 13.75 percent and 12.50 percent of cases, respectively. Spain’s capital came in fourth with 17 reported incidents (10.63%).
Source: The Local
