At the end of last week, Spanish police announced they had registered the names of about 300 people for alleged involvement in anti-migrant rioting and violent unrest in the town of Torre Pacheco earlier this month.
On July 24, Spanish police announced that they had registered the names of "about 300 people" as part of an investigation into rioting and clashes that took the town of Torre Pacheco, in the Murcia region, by storm earlier in the month.
During the unrest, extremist groups were involved in anti-migrant incidents following an attack on an elderly man from the town.
The figure was given by local prefect Mariola Guevara in statements to journalists.
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"If it is proven that they committed administrative infractions or crimes, these people will be fined or arrested," Guevara said, adding that what happened in Torre Pacheco -- which has about 40,000 inhabitants, with about 30 percent of foreign origins -- is the result of a "strategy" of groups linked to "radicalized and far-right political parties" seeking "the slightest incident to light the flame and create these sorts of conflicts."
Guevara added that this strategy "did not end in Torre Pacheco."
Concerning the attack that preceded the racist incidents -- after which calls to "hunt down Moroccans" living in the town appeared on social media -- Guevara said that there are three suspects: one who allegedly committed the crime and two accomplices.
She added that none of the suspects are from the town itself.
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138,000 anti-migrant messages on social media
Several arrests were made during the days of unrest itself, which were at their most intense between July 11 and July 13.
The Spanish observatory against racism and xenophobia was cited by the Cadena SER radio and the EFE news agency as saying that, between July 6 and 12, at least 138,000 messages against migrants appeared on social media; only 22 percent were removed.
Spanish interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, wasted no time in announcing that the video that lit the spark of the rioting was fake, since the footage of the elderly man being beaten is not that of the July 9 attack.
The victim himself "said he was not the one in the video", the minister noted, attributing responsibility for the escalation of violence in Torre Pacheco to the far-right, and specially "Vox and speech resembling that of Vox".
Grande-Marlaska accused the party of using false statements that "associate irregular immigration with criminality without any reason."
Vox party leader Santiago Abascal denied this accusation.
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