Rising Racism in Spain: Thousands of Hate Crimes Go Unreported Annually

Some 1,800 hate crime cases are recorded in Spain each year, 90% of which are not reported, declares Karoline Fernández de la Hoz, director of the Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia, to the Spanish channel La Sexta. And for good reason, the "fear" of victims that the complaint will not be successful. "We need a social rejection of racist incidents," she added.

Cases of racism are legion in Spain. Saad, a young Moroccan, is a victim of it. Several landlords refused to rent him a room because he is a "Moor". The young man, looking for a shared apartment or a room, finally found one, but a roommate told him that he could not stay because her father had forbidden her to live with a "Moor" or a "gypsy".

"I tried to get an explanation, to meet her father," explains the young man. The roommate tried to convince her father, assuring him that the Moroccan "was well dressed and had a job," but the father would not hear anything.