Spanish youths battle immigrant gangs near Madrid
Reuters:
Young Spaniards stoned police in a town outside Madrid over the weekend after fighting Latin American gang members they blame for beatings, murders and rapes in and around the capital.
Rioters used text messages to summon as many as 1,000 Spanish youths to the town of Alcorcon on Sunday after a fight between Spaniards and Latino gang members the previous day led to multiple stabbings, according to the newspaper El Pais.
"This is a war for the district of Alcorcon against those who come from outside to invade us," 16-year-old Spaniard Efe Victor told El Pais.
Spanish youths rampaged through Alcorcon on Sunday looking for Latin Americans and shouting "Latin Kings out. We're coming for them. We are going to kill them".
Police came under a hail of stones from the youths and responded with rubber bullets. Shopkeepers closed early and pulled down shutters as bins were set alight.
Nine people were arrested, six of them under the age of 18.
The central government's representative in Madrid, Soledad Mestre, said none of those involved was in Latin gangs.
"There are no Latin gangs ... neither here in Alcorcon nor in the Madrid region is there any relevant activity," she told SER national radio.
The weekend brawls marked an escalation in tension between young Latin Americans and indigenous Spaniards who say immigrant gangs like the Latin Kings are behind a rise in violent crime.
Despite the highest rate of immigration in Europe, Spain has largely avoided the tensions between immigrants and native populations seen in some European countries such as France.
Imported from the United States and Latin America, the Latin Kings and gangs like the Netas have recruited young immigrants, many of them from Ecuador, by playing on widespread unemployment and feelings of alienation from Spanish society.
Government efforts to turn the gangs away from violence hit controversy in October when Barcelona's regional administration registered the Latin Kings as a cultural organisation while Madrid tried to have them labelled an organised crime gang.
Calm returns after Madrid ethnic violence
Madrid clashes over Latin gangs
posted by Adam Lawson @ 2:28 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Alcorcón is a big city near Madrid well known for it's strong working class pride. It's inhabitants were notorious because of their fierce opposition against Franco's dictatorship.
But anarchists and trade unionists haven been now the most active of them fighting against who they openly call scum. They say they're simply fighting back for their city, for their streets and parks where even children can't play without being abused and beaten by immigrant gangs. They're tough people, without stupid guilt complex of soft liberals, and don't hesitate to confront immigrant gangs.
By the way, Spaniards are the ones to be called latin (latinos), as Portuguese, Italians, French and Romanians. Southamericans don't deserve this name. They're not descendents of the Roman Empire as we are. They're not even Europeans.
Southamericans aren't other Spanish people, as English speaking Asians aren't other English people.
Uncontrolled non-european mass immigration is the problem we face not only in Spain but in all Europe.
We've had enough.
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