Spanish Police Chief Faces Racist Backlash Over Moroccan Heritage

"Laila Idriss Hajj Mohamed is the target of a vile racist campaign by Spaniards who have not accepted the appointment of this woman to a senior position within the National Police." On the web, the comments are pouring in. "Your leaders are also high treason collaborators and will be tried when the time comes, failed mercenaries," can be read in one of the messages posted on social networks. An investigation has been opened in the wake of this.

Laila Idriss Hajj Mohamed, 54, was born in Melilla. She has 30 years of experience. A police officer since 1995, she arrived in Jaén three years ago as head of the Operations Coordination Unit. Laila was head of the local police station in Andújar for a short period. She has held other positions of responsibility. The fifty-year-old was in charge of the Spanish unit in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti and was posted to the Spanish embassy in Morocco between 2013 and 2017. She is the first Moroccan Muslim woman to hold a senior position in the Spanish State Security and speaks four languages.

"In Ávila, in 1995, I received technical training and learned the meaning of being a police officer, which is not limited to ensuring compliance with the Law, but consists of being at the service of people. It is the one who holds the hand in moments of despair, who comforts with words in the darkest moments and who defends fundamental rights," Laila confides to Diario de Jaén.