Imogen Calderwood
A VIDEO has emerged of Spanish police beating an African migrant at the Melilla border, sparking outrage in Spain.
Scroll down for video.
Several policemen can be seen surrounding the migrant and beating him with truncheons until he drops from the fence.
The Guardia Civil officers then carry the apparently unconscious migrant back across the border to Morocco.
The man was one of about 100 migrants who rushed the six-metre-high fence between the Spanish enclave of Melilla and Morocco last week.
Prodein – a Melilla-based humanitarian group – filmed the video, and has identified the man as a 23-year-old Cameroonian named Danny.
If they stopped trying to enter the country illegally they wouldn’t be at risk of a beating. They are economic migrants, not refugees.
That’s not the point. Spain is a civilised country and not run under martial law. This is not how civilised countries treat anyone, regardless of their actions or their motives. Use of reasonable force is one thing, gang brutality another.
Dreadful scenes, what has happened to Spain?
Good, they should be doing that in Calais as well.
The Spanish authorities should use reasonable and not violent force but they can’t have an open door policy and just let everyone in, that really is madness. How are these people going to support themselves, there are not enough jobs for Spaniards so how would these people find work?
This is very similar to the problem we have with the border at Calais with people trying to enter the UK and I rather suspect that many of the people who make it through the borders with Melilla/Ceuta end up there.
Anyone who agrees with this behaviour has an extremely nasty, Fascist side to them. Lawless activity of this kind, belongs back in Nazi Germany. The function of police is to detect and detain criminals until a court deals with them. Once the principle of summary punishment is established, it isn’t far then, from being dragged from your car and leathered for some perceived infraction.
Spanish police and Guardia are always very big and tough in groups with their guns. Sal – do you live in Spain? If you did you would know that it is run under a threat of violence. Nobody can speak against the police. What happens at the Gibraltar border to their own people would not happen in the UK. People would stand up to the forces but here they are frightened to speak up let alone demonstrate.
I understand where you are coming from Reap but you don’t have to beat people senseless to achieve what you need to at Calais. Unfortunately the French do not help! All they want is a payout from EU or UK.
Melilla is in Africa, not Spain. These desperate, deluded people can’t get to Spain from there, unless, (unlikely) they swim.
The best they can hope for is a miserable existence in a holding camp until they are slung back over the border. There fore, to administer a beating is simple sadism.