Death threats against Abascal and his family reignite Spain's political violence debate

Death threats against Abascal and his family: the line being crossed on social media

An Instagram user wrote to Lidia Bedman wishing that "each one of you gets a bullet in the head." This is no bar-room hyperbole: it is the message that Santiago Abascal's vvife has made public, along with another wishing that the leader of Vox gets "a Charlie Kirk treatment" and an even more disturbing phrase aimed at the minors: "They should be eliminated while they're young." Bedman's public denunciation — she says she has no time for insults but does for threats against her children — has peine Pandora's box once again on where political confrontation ends and incivil threats begin.

The case, reported by Libertad Digital, does not by itself establish the real identity of the author or the existence of an open court case. But the content shared — shootings, ETA graves, the elimination of minors — places the conversation on terrain that transcends the ideology of those affected. And that is where the discussion breaks down.

From name-calling to a death wish: what the messages contain

The messages shared by Bedman include a direct threat against the whole family: "Let's see if they put a bullet in each of your heads." In another post, the same user expresses the wish that the terrorist group ETA return so that Abascal ends up in a grave. The reference to the murder of the American conservative activist Charlie Kirk — wishing that the leader of Vox gets "a Charlie Kirk treatment" — introduces an explicit allusion to political violence that, according to the text, is especially significant given the context.

The most sensitive point is the one aimed at the couple's children: "They should be eliminated while they're young." Bedman has explained that she is not willing to spend time on insults or provocations, but has drawn a clear line when it comes to death threats. The public denunciation once again puts on the table the verbal violence that can spread on social media, especially when attacks go beyond name-calling and target family members and minors.

The "false flag" response: the theory running through the debate

Part of the conversation does not question the gravity of the content, but its authorship. There is speculation that the messages could be a false flag operation, a setup to portray the party as a victim. The comparison with earlier episodes — the cartridges sent to Pablo Iglesias, which the material itself counts as four cartridges in a first letter in April 2021 and an additional bullet intercepted in May — serves as ammunition for both sides: some use it to say that threats against the right exist too; others, to recall that their veracity was doubted back then.

The suspicion of a setup is not backed by any evidence in the available material. It is a hypothesis in circulation, not a fact. And it coexists with the complaint that verbal violence is systematic in certain digital environments. The result is an exchange where condemnation is conditioned on the ideological affiliation of the person threatened.

The impossible symmetry: who commits political violence?

The core of the disagreement is asymmetry. Some argue that violence and hatred come from a single ideological flank and that the other side merely responds in a civic manner. Opposing them is the thesis that extremists exist on both sides and that the climate of hostility feeds on itself. A third, more skeptical current reduces the whole episode to useful theater for mobilizing each side's base.

Hard data are conspicuously absent from the exchange: there are no figures on complaints, no statistics on threats by political affiliation, no court rulings. Only one verifiable fact: an Instagram account sent messages wishing death upon a family, including minors. Everything else is interpretation.

The context nobody disputes: elections and a climate of confrontation

The temporal backdrop is set by the proximity of an election, with calls to concentrate votes at the ballot box and warnings about assaults at rallies. That framework explains why an episode of private threats becomes a political weapon: each side reads it as confirmation of its own narrative. The question hovering over it all — which the material leaves unanswered — is whether Bedman's public denunciation seeks protection or electoral gain.

The only certainty is that the messages exist, that their content is extreme, and that the identity of whoever sent them has not been verified. Everything else is a fight over the narrative.

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In the end, the most unsettling fact is not the threat itself: it is that, well into the 21st century, the most common response to an explicit wish to kill children is to argue about the political affiliation of those threatened.