José Antonio Fúster, official spokesman of the Spanish right-wing Vox Party and deputy in the Madrid Assembly, is being investigated by the Catalan police force for linking migration with criminality.
During a press conference in Bambú, in July 2023, he read out aloud a list of first names of people arrested after heavy riots in Barcelona.
“The list of the first 50 people arrested on Saturday night in Barcelona: Sabar, Omar, Nassim, Abdelkader, Salah, Salah, Younes, Karim, Jamil, Amir, Alí, Oussama, Hassan… I could go on. Can you see any pattern? The only hatred is against Spaniards and their security.”
“We do, and this is what we have been denouncing for a long time, that the open-door policy of the Popular Party and the PSOE has direct consequences on the security of Spaniards,” he added.
“The imported crime suffered by Spaniards in their neighbourhoods has names and surnames. Remember the names I just said, I’m not going to say the last names.”
José Antonio Fúster: “El listado de los 50 primeros detenidos durante la noche del sábado en Barcelona: Sabar, Omar, Nassim, Abdelkader, Salah, Salah, Younes, Karim, Jamil, Amir, Alí, Oussama, Hassan… puedo seguir. ¿Notan ustedes algún patrón?”.
Según algunos denunciar la… pic.twitter.com/0cARZATX1w
— Sr.Liberal (@SrLiberal) March 30, 2025
This earned him a complaint for hate crime by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force with a court in Barcelona.
Fúster was informed of this last week, and shared it online on March 30.
On X he wrote, “I can imagine the face of the police officer who reported me saying, ‘But how are we going to charge VOX’s national spokesperson for reporting an objective fact in a press conference?’ and another replying, ‘Orders are orders.'”
“Anyway, send me files to prison—lots of files.”
Because he’s an elected official in Madrid, Fúster enjoyed immunity.
The Spanish politician said he wanted to “denounce the disastrous effects of illegal immigration”, in response to those who “tell us that immigration and crime cannot be related”.
In February, another Vox politician, Rocío de Meer, was also charged with a hate crime after remarking that it was “scary” that the first baby born in 18 years in the town of Vega de Villalobos was named Ayoub.
“The future of this country is dark”, she said.
Action Against Hate (ACO), a local organisation, took this to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, claiming she was “demonising Muslims in Spain,” in violation of the penal code.
De Meer could face sentences of up to four years in prison for aggravated hate crime, as requested by Action Against Hate, vice president of ACO, Joaquín Urías said at the time.
“This is how a human group is dehumanised and social anger is turned against it, which is precisely what the European Court of Human Rights reproaches hate speech.”
Within Vox, some said they believed that the complaint was intended to intimidate its members and those who oppose uncontrolled immigration.
In September, national party leader Santiago Abascal said that hate crimes were invented by the Left to “muzzle certain discourses that aim to defend national interests and the security of the people”.
He said that there is a relationship between illegal immigration and crime, calling it “a reality”, and stressed he used official data from the Ministry of the Interior.
“What they call hate speech is often just language they hate”, Abascal said.
The party wants to remove the offence of hate crimes, article 510, out of the Spanish Penal Code.
