'Deport Them Now': The European hate machine exploiting Torre Pacheco

BarcelonaThe Civil Guard has arrested a man in Mataró, CLF, for his alleged role as instigator of the racist disturbances that have occurred in recent days in the Murcia town of Torre Pacheco. According to a brief statement from the Civil Guard, after entering and searching the home where he lived and confiscating two computers, sufficient evidence has been gathered to suggest that the arrested man held "leadership positions" within a supremacist and xenophobic group operating online against the Maghreb community.

The name of this group is "Deport Them Now UE," and police sources say they should not be viewed as a formal organization, but rather as one element within a global movement that has been gaining ground in different European countries as a disseminator of the distorted ideals that associate immigration—particularly from the Maghreb—with crime.

In fact, stirring up the population to cause disturbances in Torre Pacheco "in defense of Spain," as can be read in previous messages, is not an isolated case: for months this group (along with many others) has been defending racist ideas such as the mass deportation of immigrants (and people of foreign origin) to participate in protests and mobilizations called by far-right political parties or those aligned with their ideas.

For experts on extremism consulted by ARA, Deport Them Now (DTN) is just another group within the constellation of far-right activism with many names and many projects, but with the same people behind it. The group that has fueled the fire in Murcia is well organized on the networks, but has little participation on the streets.

Police sources emphasize that DTN has so far played a rather anecdotal role, but confirm that in Catalonia they have appealed and have been seen at some protests organized by Vox in Mataró and Terrassa. They also explain that some members stood out for their militarized aesthetic, which completely clashed with the rest of the attendees, mostly residents. "A poster has been circulating showing the DTN logo alongside that of Vox, and both were present at that rally," emphasizes far-right journalist Miquel Ramos.

The expert affirms that it is known that this group maintains ties not only with far-right parties in Spain, but also with European ones. "They recently participated in a conference held in Milan, focused on the concept of re-emigration. They were there, made themselves visible, and published promotional material to demonstrate their presence alongside these organizations," he asserts.

Islamophobia

The role of groups like DTN is to encourage citizens who share anti-immigration ideals and mobilize through social media. How? By taking advantage of neighborhood conflicts that become public knowledge in neighborhoods with high poverty rates and immigrant populations—the occupation of a building, the opening of a place of worship, or the commission of a crime by a person of foreign origin—to generalize it as a problem caused by the entire community.

Often, these groups also use images and videos from another time or even another country "to obscure the distinction between truth and lies," Ramos points out. The objective: to amplify the feeling of insecurity neighborhood by neighborhood, attract their supporters, and create holes in the neighborhoods "so that immigration ends up being discussed from the perspective of insecurity and violence."

From there, Ramos adds, the group sets the entire machinery of hate in motion, "calling on its people to act, to restore order," in the face of a supposed insecurity that they systematically attribute to immigrants. Police sources compare this movement with the beginnings of Pegida, founded in 2014 in Germany and which denounced "the process of Islamization" of the Germanic country due to the increase, since the end of the 20th century, in the population professing this religion.

And that is what these groups are now propagating: that the enemy are Muslims, especially North Africans. "There is an Islamophobic discourse that has become the anti-Semitism of the 21st century," Ramos summarizes. It should also be added that lies are now spread through social media, but politicians also reproduce them on their own channels and accounts.

This is the case of the president of Vox in Murcia, José Ángel Antelo, who said: "All the violence experienced in Torre Pacheco is the fault of the PP and the PSOE for financing and filling our streets with illegal immigration. With Vox, deportations, security and peace in our neighborhoods." For Ramos, incidents like this do not come out of nowhere, but rather "emerge from the ideological laboratories of the far right" and are the culmination of a process that has been brewing for a long time, slowly, both from institutions—driven by far-right parties—and from certain media outlets, which address crime and insecurity.

Disinformation tools

Today, this process is amplified through social media. "There are individuals who have become very popular, as well as YouTube channels and Telegram groups where disinformation and hate speech circulate freely," Ramos argues, insisting that all the parties that have obtained parliamentary representation in recent years have had access to a large amount of public money and have launched numerous training schools and dissemination strategies. "There are individuals dedicated exclusively to disinformation," he asserts.

This Tuesday, the Civil Guard reported that access to the Telegram channel used by Deport Them Now UE has been closed for having disseminated the hate speech statement to attract supporters to Murcia, although ARA has been able to verify that the channel is currently full. Investigative Court Number 4 of San Javier, in Murcia, has assumed coordination of the case, jointly with the Hate Crimes Prosecutor's Office of the autonomous community.