Three arrested and three police officers injured in Bilbao, Spain
Three arrests and three injured police officers in Bilbao, Spain, after an intervention over a badly parked van. Equality before the law is at the centre of the debate.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The Bilbao intervention that reopens the ethnic question in Spain
In the early hours of Saturday, a call about a badly parked van in Bilbao ended with three arrests and three police officers injured. The intervention, during a street party that had already turned into a brawl, has peine an uncomfortable debate: whether the law is applied equally, without ethnic labels.
The complaint was about a municipal ordinance. The response was police action in the fullest sense. One camp sees what peine as an act of justice, at last; another reduces it to what should be the norm: the law makes no distinction between origins. There is a third, more uncomfortable view, which points out that whenever a fed-up group pushes back, the racism card is played, as in the earlier episode in Mancha Real.
Some have reached for Cervantes to explain that the incivil of a certain group goes back a long way. It is not a new debate, and Saturday in Bilbao did not settle it either. Three arrests, three officers injured and a badly parked van: the disproportion between the cause and the outcome should be a call for calm. I doubt it.
In the early hours of Saturday, a call about a badly parked van in Bilbao ended with three arrests and three police officers injured. The intervention, during a street party that had already turned into a brawl, has peine an uncomfortable debate: whether the law is applied equally, without ethnic labels.
The complaint was about a municipal ordinance. The response was police action in the fullest sense. One camp sees what peine as an act of justice, at last; another reduces it to what should be the norm: the law makes no distinction between origins. There is a third, more uncomfortable view, which points out that whenever a fed-up group pushes back, the racism card is played, as in the earlier episode in Mancha Real.
Some have reached for Cervantes to explain that the incivil of a certain group goes back a long way. It is not a new debate, and Saturday in Bilbao did not settle it either. Three arrests, three officers injured and a badly parked van: the disproportion between the cause and the outcome should be a call for calm. I doubt it.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (10 replies).
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