Spain, white on black. Cartoon of 27/03/2026 in CTXT
Translation of the cartoon: "A law enforcement officer arbitrarily bringing the full force of the law to bear, with his knee on a citizen's neck"
If you need context about the cartoon, you can start by reading here about the arrest of Serigne Mbaye, and others, on 26 March in Madrid. Just a few minutes after the violent police action, with no police statement, no police report or anything else, some media such as El Mundo, and others, were already talking about lots of injured policemen.
Days later, the state security forces' reconstruction of the events has changed as the case has amplified. The number of injured officers multiplied from one to five in a few minutes.
The police restraint technique of pressing the knee on the neck of a detainee is a very dangerous manoeuvre, internationally recognised as a disproportionate use of force and in many cases associated with mechanical asphyxiation. This manoeuvre is applied when the detainee is already restrained or even handcuffed, which amplifies the perception of unnecessary force. The "prone position" with pressure, known as "positional asphyxia", is considered high risk.
While this form of torture of someone pinned to the ground is practised all over the world, in some countries, and even in some states of the USA, it is banned or attempts are made to limit its application in one way or another, but the scene of the knee on the neck or head of a detainee, the use and abuse of the taser or even strangulation, is already part of the landscape of police actions with excessive use of force. Until 2020, when France banned the police from using the strangulation technique, the police could even kill detainees by asphyxiation - and some of them died that way.
Be that as it may, this technique of stomping on the neck of an immobilised and handcuffed person, and the images it leaves behind, continue to remind us of the worst scenes of the interventions of the ICE savages or the photograph of Derek Chauvin crushing George Floyd' s neck or of any other police action in the United States.
Land of opportunity. Cartoon of 31/05/2020 in CTXT
But we do not have to go to any country in our neighbourhood or on any other continent. Here we have recent cases such as the death of Haitam Mejri, a matter that reeks of police violence with no respect for life, or that of "a thief" unnamed by the media, who died of asphyxiation. Or that of a young man in Elche in August 2017, whose neck was pressed by a policeman while he was face down, shackled hand and foot, and who died on the spot, as well as many others that did not make the news because the detainees did not die.
Spanish ICE thugs and the arrest of Mbaye and our comrades
Editorial by 'El Salto' which has been joined by the following media: 'CTXT', 'Pikara Magazine', 'La Marea', 'Pandemia Digital', 'Carne Cruda', 'El Plural', 'Canal Red', 'Sin Permiso' and 'Spanish Revolution'.
As members of an editorial collective that believes in freedom and democracy, we believe that Fernando Grande-Marlaska should not stay one more minute as Minister of the Interior.
No meme can cover up the reality. Racist raids continue to take place in Spain under Pedro Sánchez. The prime minister, global icon of the left, the man who says "no" to Trump, is also the latest person responsible for the National Police stopping neighbours at their front door because of the colour of their skin. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska is the daily reminder that the "no to war", which looks so good in the global press, turns yellow when it comes to the daily war against our neighbours, most of the time poor, brown, black. There is no meme that covers up the fact that in Spain there are racist raids like the one that ended with the arrest of Serigne Mbaye on 26 March.
Mbaye is not unknown. He has been a militant of the Sindicato de Manteros, a former Podemos deputy in the Community of Madrid, and is an activist in anti-racist struggles, solidarity for Palestine, and all kinds of demands for human rights. None of that mattered to the policemen who stopped him on his way home: he was arrested because of his skin colour.
The first version from the Government Delegation, which El Salto has been able to learn, indicated that a neighbour reported "a robbery" in the neighbourhood where Mbaye lives. His skin colour, his Senegalese origin, did the rest. The thugs of the Spanish ICE, that is, the national police trained in the policy of racist raids initiated by the PSOE of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and followed by Minister Marlaska, are clear about who they can persecute and harass. If he were white, no agent would have suspected Mbaye.
But Serigne Mbaye was not alone. His neighbours, the people of his neighbourhood, came out to protest against the violent outrage that half a dozen police officers were committing. Among them was Martín Cúneo, editor of El Salto, as well as our contributor Pedro Ramiro. These neighbours tried to prevent an unjustified and violent arrest; they were pushed and shoved, thrown to the ground and arrested.
All this did not happen in Minneapolis, but in Villaverde (Madrid). It was not carried out by a patrol of the US border agency, but by the National Police of the coalition government.
An hour after El Salto published first-hand information about the raid and the arrest of six people, the Europa Press agency, which specialises in critically presenting the disinformation coming from the Government Delegation, published the police version.
The agency founded by Opus Dei described the events as a "scuffle" and added a completely false paragraph: "This group of men, including Mbaye, violently confronted the police, according to the same sources. The officers had to reduce them and arrest a total of seven people for alleged offences of serious disobedience and resistance to authority".
The reality, as El Salto had previously explained, is that Mbaye arrived at the door of his house where, once there and faced with the arrest, neighbours came down to prevent them from taking him away; that the police pushed and violated them, even entering a private property to look for them and arrest one of them inside. And that they were finally taken away, presumably aware that they had made a mistake but, as usual, convinced that no matter how much happens, nothing will happen.
Mbaye is not unknown. If he were, the video of his arrest would not have spread through the social networks; there would not have been strong condemnations from all the social movements and left-wing parties. Strangers bear the brunt of the thuggishness of the state security forces. With them there is no solidarity and recognition from miles of people. Because racist raids are like that, indiscriminate and daily, so frequent that we hardly notice them. Today Mbaye's arrest has made it onto the news agenda, tomorrow the same thing will happen with another black or Latino person and it will not appear in the media.
As journalists we demand, first and foremost, that the truth be acknowledged. We have been able to document it from minute one, not in vain one of our colleagues has helped in his own skin the police abuse and violence. As journalists we are obliged to tell that behind the meme of Pedro Sánchez, behind all the enthusiasm that his figure generates, lies the same system that has waged an endless war against the poor, that has allowed police abuse and violence to be perpetuated during his eight years in office. The same system that this very 26 March gave the green light to a return regulation that normalises the deportation of migrants. As members of a collective editor who believe in freedom and democracy, we believe that Fernando Grande-Marlaska should not stay one more minute as Minister of the Interior.
Communiqué from the residents of the neighbourhood.
Police violence on the doorstep
The community of Serigne Mbaye 's neighbours denounce his violent arrest when he was entering his house.
- The police operation also arrested six other neighbours, three inside the building and in the presence of children and adolescents, when they came out to see what was going on.
- Some of the people who were recording the events were also arrested, which violates freedom of information.
- There are three neighbours and one neighbour with injuries from the police intervention, who had to return to hospital this morning.
We denounce this aggression against our neighbour, who is not the first time he has been identified on the basis of ethnic-racial profiling. These are everyday practices that we see many racialised people in our neighbourhood suffering.
On Friday morning, while we took two of our neighbours to the emergency room for injuries sustained in the police action, the community in which Serigne Mbaye lives issued this statement to give our version of events, to show our solidarity with the seven people arrested and to denounce the daily police harassment suffered by racialised people in our neighbourhood.
Yesterday, Thursday 26 March, at 19:30 in the evening, Serigne Mbaye was arrested as he was entering his house. He did not even have time to take the keys out of the lock before plainclothes policemen demanded that he identify himself. When he explained that he was entering his house and that there was no reason for them to identify him, the forcefulness and harshness of the police escalated very quickly, even pinning Serigne to the ground with disproportionate force.
Alarmed and frightened, the children living in the building alerted their families to what was happening. Several adults from the building rushed downstairs to try to explain that Serigne is a member of the community and that she is a quiet person. But all their efforts to try to explain the situation were met with an increasingly disproportionate response, which grew as more police units arrived.
The police forcefully detained seven neighbours, throwing them to the ground, kneeing them in the head and beating several people in a forceful manner. Three of them were detained even inside the building and four of them suffered injuries. Some of the people who were recording the events were also arrested, which violates freedom of information.
Despite the unjustified police forcefulness, the neighbours never hindered the work of the officers, but rather tried to mediate what was happening. In fact, on two occasions they asked for dialogue with the command, which was ignored.
For coexistence and non-discrimination in our neighbourhood
Serigne Mbaye's neighbours have witnessed, once again, another unjust racial profiling of our neighbour. We would like to add that no other neighbour of the building (white people) has ever been identified either in the street or at the door of his house and this is the second time that Serigne, of Senegalese origin, has been stopped in the vicinity of his home, not to mention the dozens of times he has been identified and harassed in the streets.
We know that this is not an isolated case as we see it every day on our daily commute and hear it from the people affected (families in the school community, etc.). They all tell of the constant harassment they are subjected to by the police and the impact it has on them and their families.
