Racial Profiling in Spain: Still Going Strong?

Rosalind Williams, who spoke recently at the Open Society Institute on her successful racial profiling case against Spain, was stopped by police again in Spain on her way back home from the U.S. Not the sort of welcome one appreciates after a 16-hour journey. While the Spanish government says that much has changed since she was discriminated against 18 years ago, it seems profiling is still going strong.

Rosalind sent us the following account:

“I arrived at Barajas airport, Madrid, at 4.23 pm on Sunday, March 28 from San Francisco via Amsterdam. After picking up my luggage, two suitcases (one large green one and a small grey one), I loaded them onto a cart and went toward the exit.

Customs clearance into EU countries is carried out at the first point of entry coming in from a non-EU state. So in my case, I had already presented my identification at passport control and cleared customs at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam earlier that morning, before I switched flights to Madrid. So I should have been all set.

However, as I walked toward the exit, a man came up and signaled for me to stop. He was dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, with a badge enclosed in a plastic folder and secured around his neck with a ribbon. He opened a flat case which contained a metal badge--which I presumed was a police badge.

He asked me (in Spanish) where I was coming from. I answered, from San Francisco. He then asked me for my passport. I presented him my Spanish passport. He proceeded to look at the page with my data and picture and then asked if I had come from Amsterdam. I said yes. He then began to turn the pages in the passport rather rapidly. Then he began to turn each page again, this time slowly. He asked if they had stamped my passport. I said no. He gave me back the passport and said thank you.

I was the only person stopped. Other passengers passed ahead of me beforehand, and exited while I was being questioned. After I was told I could leave, I looked behind me for a few minutes. No one else was being stopped.

I, of course, presumed I was being subjected once again to racial profiling.

Once outside the baggage claim area and in the public waiting area, I thought that I should probably have asked the officer why I was being stopped and also his badge number—with this information it would have been possible to have filed a complaint at the airport police station.

However, I had been traveling for 16 hours—departure from San Francisco was at 4.30 pm (PDT) on Saturday afternoon, March 27, and I arrived at Barajas (Madrid) at 4.23 pm (Madrid time) on Sunday, March 28. I had woken at 7.00 am in San Francisco to prepare for the trip and by the time the policeman stopped me in Madrid, I had been 25 hours without sleep.

I frankly didn’t have the stamina to go through the process of asking the policeman for his ID and placing a complaint at the airport’s police station based on suspected racial profiling. Not to mention, since I was traveling alone, the fear of possibly being subjected to unpleasant treatment by the officers on duty.”