Hate crimes in Spain continued to increase in 2022: Report

OVIEDO, Spain

Hate crimes in Spain continued to climb in 2022, rising 3.7% over the past year, according to a report published Wednesday by Spain’s Interior Ministry.

Most hate crimes – 43.5% of the total – were related to racism and xenophobia. Spanish authorities investigated 755 of those types of hate crimes last year, up 18% from 2021.

But hate crimes related to gender saw the most dramatic year-on-year increase, with those crimes growing 77%.

In Spain, the majority of hate crimes investigated involve injuries and threats, followed by insults or other damages.

Hate crimes have been growing in Spain year after year. Experts are still trying to parse whether that is due to increased reporting and police sensitivity, or due to rising levels of violence against vulnerable groups.

“We think we’re getting more reporting … And it seems like Spain is becoming generally more tolerant, but at the same time that might make some people even less tolerant,” Tomas Fernandez, a director at Spain’s national hate crime office, told broadcaster TVE.

Still, those crimes are just the tip of the iceberg. Fernandez said that only 10-20% of hate crimes are reported to police.

Of the nearly 1,900 hate crimes investigated in Spain last year, authorities in the Basque Country investigated the most (407), followed by Catalonia (237), Madrid (237) and Andalusia (207).

Of the victims, 60% are Spanish. The rest are foreign, with Moroccans being the most targeted group, ahead of Colombians and Senegalese.

Compared to France, Spain's numbers are low. In 2022, France’s Interior Ministry counted 12,600 racist, xenophobic and anti-religious hate crimes, more than tenfold the Spanish figure.

In Spain, 838 people were arrested or investigated for hate crimes last year, 79% of whom were male.

Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that victims of hate crimes need more than just material reparations.

“We should think about moral compensation, which can be even more important for the victim who has had their dignity, freedom or free development under equal conditions attacked,” he said while presenting the annual hate crime report.