Prosecution figures refer to the number of indictments.
The sentencing number includes both first instance (149) and second instance (24) judgments.
The breakdown below does not include 147 offences motivated by ideology.
In 2024, OBERAXE established a partnership with the European Commission to hold Training Days on Counter-Narratives and Alternative Narratives in Spain with the objective of training civil society representatives with expertise on hate speech to develop alternative and counter-narratives as a tool to combat hate speech online and offline.
In 2023-2024, Spanish authorities co-operated with civil society organizations to implement the CISDO project, which aims to enhance the capacity of national and local police to prevent, identify and respond to racist and xenophobic incidents, as well as hate crimes. The project improves mutual knowledge and builds bonds of trust in order to prevent hate crimes from going unreported, as well as strengthen the support provided to victims of such crimes. On 11 November 2024, the final conference of the CISDO project was held (titled 'Inter-police and Social Cooperation against Hate Crime'.
In 2024, ONDOD carried out a hate crime victimization survey in collaboration with the University of Salamanca. Its objective was not only to study the cases of victims of hate crimes but also to investigate the role and perspective of witnesses to hate crimes. The University of Salamanca conducted a preliminary research to determine the elements of interest. The survey was launched in the first half of 2024 on a website with an easy-to-read format, thus ensuring that it was accessible to all users.
This category includes both hate crimes based on sexual orientation and those based on gender identity.
The bias behind the offences in this category was not specified.
ODIHR recognizes Spain's efforts to enhance the capacity of national and local police to address hate crimes. However, based on the available information, it observes that Spain's hate crime statistics do not sufficiently distinguish hate crimes from other crimes. Further, ODIHR observes that Spain would benefit from strengthening collaboration with and facilitating the efforts of civil society working to address hate crime and support hate crime victims.
ODIHR recalls that in Ministerial Council Decisions 9/09 participating States agreed to a definition of hate crime shared by all OSCE participating States. They also committed to collect reliable data and statistics on hate crimes. To that end, hate crimes need to be distinguished throughout the recording and data collection process from hate speech, discrimination and other related crimes. Further, participating States committed to taking a proactive and inclusive approach to civil society. ODIHR stands ready to support Spain in meeting the relevant commitments through its comprehensive resources and tailored assistance in the area of hate crime data collection and through the provision of comprehensive resources and assistance to strengthen hate crime victim support systems.
For 2024, ODIHR received reports of hate incidents in Spain from the following civil society organizations:
- Union of Islamic Communities of Spain
- Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG)
- Observatory for Freedom of Religion and Conscience (OLRC)
- European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses
- International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF)
- The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC)
To learn more about these organizations, visit the Contributors page.
In addition, ODIHR also received reports of incidents from the Holy See as part of their ongoing monitoring.
All incidents submitted by the above organizations have been analysed by ODIHR. Those that were broadly considered to be hate crimes within the OSCE definition (criminal offence committed with a bias motive) are listed in the tables below according to the bias motivation category. Some incidents involved multiple biases and may be listed in multiple categories.
Please note that incidents reported here are based on voluntary civil society submissions and as such might not reflect the actual number of incidents or the most targeted communities in Spain.
To address under-reporting, ODIHR encourages any civil society organizations or groups that monitor hate incidents to report to ODIHR at hatecrimereport@odihr.pl.
To export an Excel sheet with summaries of all incidents from Spain click here and search by year and country.