Over a fifth of complaints filed by SOS Racisme in 2022 involve police violence

Over a fifth of complaints filed by SOS Racisme, an anti-racist association in Catalonia, in 2022 involved police violence, more than any other kind of incident.

The second most common form of racism the association filed complaints against was that from private individuals, accounting for 19% of the 110 reports, followed by discrimination regarding access to public benefits and private services, each 17% of the total.

According to figures made public by the NGO on Thursday, 337 instances of racism were identified last year. Of these, only a third ended up being reported to authorities for various reasons, the most common being the victim's fear of retaliation.

"Seven of every ten racist incidents are not reported," SOS Racisme's Paula Rossi said. 

"When re-victimization, bureaucratic obstacles, and societal judgment become harmful, filing a report often becomes a privilege," SOS Racisme's 2022 briefing reads.

All in all, the NGO assisted 584 people last year in 98 cities and towns across Catalonia. For 414 of them, it was their first time receiving assistance from the NGO.

Addressing Catalonia's colonial history

Catalonia needs to "explicitly" address and "recognize" its role in "colonial processes and the slave trade," SOS Racisme argues.

This history, the NGO says, has current-day implications for the "dehumanization and criminalization of non-white people."

SOS Racisme cites the case of Idrissa Diallo to illustrate this point: although the statue of Antonio López, a slave trader, was removed from the square in downtown Barcelona renamed after a Guinean man who died in a migrant detention center in 2012, Idrissa Diallo, the pedestal honoring him is still up.

Catalan administrations and institutions continue to lack a "firm anti-racist stance" the NGO says, something it believes is key to countering far-right bigotry as well as day-to-day discrimination, from racial profiling to the denial of unfair treatment.