The initiative, under the slogan «Stop racism, not people», aims to end racist stops, identifications, and raids which, according to the organizations, have severe physical and emotional consequences for those affected. Amnesty International's Local Group in Tres Cantos has also joined this campaign, contacting local associations to endorse the manifesto.
The organizations denounce that these police practices deepen social stigmatization and violate fundamental freedoms and rights. For migrants, including those in regularization processes, the consequences can be dramatic, potentially leading to expulsion or delays in obtaining residence and work permits.
Racist stops, identifications, and raids have serious physical and emotional consequences for individuals, as they are subjected to unjustified controls that force them to identify themselves, and even be frisked in public spaces.
International bodies such as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations have criticized these practices in Spain, calling for their explicit prohibition. A direct observation study conducted by the Andalusian Association for Human Rights in 2016 at the Granada bus station revealed a significant disproportion: for every white person identified, 42 black individuals were stopped.
A 2024 report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, based on a survey of 6,752 immigrants and descendants of sub-Saharan immigrants in 13 member states, highlighted that black individuals face a higher risk of police checks. In Spain, 34% of Afro-descendant men were stopped and identified by the police. Of those detained in the year prior to the report, 58% believed their last detention was due to racial discrimination, with Spain having the second-highest rate (66%).
Given this situation, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has urged the Spanish State to take necessary measures to definitively end identity checks based on racial and ethnic profiles, and to ensure their investigation and sanction. Human rights organizations and social groups point out that this is an entrenched practice used for migration control, which generates distrust towards police forces and reinforces the helplessness of affected individuals.
Among the recommendations, it is proposed to include an explicit prohibition of police identifications based on racial or ethnic profiling in Article 16 of the Citizen Security Law. Furthermore, following the recommendations of the Ombudsman, the implementation of stop, search, and identification forms in police actions is demanded to objectively document the motivations and outcomes of interventions.
