Overview
- The Ertzaintza is the first police force in Spain to routinely report detainees’ origin by broad categories such as Maghrebi or Latin American, specifying nationality only when the person is Spanish.
- The practice has been formalized over the past three weeks and was first applied in an October 13 Bilbao case where an official note included the origin of both the victim and the detainee.
- Security minister Bingen Zupiria argues publishing origin data counters stigmatization driven by partial disclosures and asserts that full transparency helps neutralize politicized narratives.
- EH Bildu, Sumar, and migrant support groups criticize the policy as discriminatory and call for it to be withdrawn.
- Official figures to September show criminal offenses up 1.36% in Euskadi, with 28,758 cases closed—53% involving Spanish nationals and 47% people of foreign origin—while foreign nationals account for about 9.9% of the population.