Housing discrimination, police abuse and institutional racism exacerbated by Covid-19, says SOS Racisme

Azima, a Muslim woman of Moroccan origin, lives in Pallejà, a small Baix Llobregat county town not far from Barcelona, with her husband and two young children. A year before their tenancy agreement was up, Azima decided it was time to move: the landlord had informed her that she could either start paying €100 more per month or wait until the contract ended and pay another €200 to €300 per month for a new one.

But little did she know just how difficult it would be to find a new apartment in Pallejà. Because there are few empty homes in town, anyone interested in moving has to sign up with a real estate agency and wait for them to call when one becomes available—except for they never seemed to be available for Azima and her family.

On a few occasions, it seemed they could be close to finding a new place to live before eventually being told the landlord had chosen other tenants. One realtor ended up telling them the owner was "worried too many people would end up moving in," while another confessed they simply didn't want immigrants moving in.

Azima, who is yet to find a new home, is one of the 590 people Barcelona-based anti-racist non-profit SOS Racisme Catalunya assisted in 2020.

According to the organization's 2020 'State of Racism in Catalonia' report, of these nearly 600 people, 182 were victims of racist discrimination, of which 99 particular instances have been reported to authorities—those that go unreported are often out of fear of deportation or because the non-profit can no longer locate the person involved.

Racism worsens during pandemic

SOS Racisme believes the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality and discrimination in Catalonia, a phenomenon they argue is linked to institutional racism, overpolicing, and housing discrimination such as that faced by Azima.

"The health crisis has exposed in the crudest way possible that society and our institutions suffer from deep, historical and structural racism," the 2020 report reads.

This desire to blame those who are perceived as foreign and not belonging, the non-profit says, is exemplified in the surge in anti-Chinese sentiment during the pandemic or attitudes towards migrant seasonal workers who were affected by outbreaks in western Catalonia last summer as well as attacks on facilities housing migrant minors.

And while overpolicing is not a new phenomenon—the former head of the Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra police, Eduard Sallent, admitted racial profiling was an issue in law enforcement—the organization says there was an increase in racist police abuse during the first Covid-19 state of alarm. Around 23% of racism cases SOS Racisme dealt with this year related to police abuse.

Of the other racist incidents the non-profit assisted people for in 2020, 27% had to do with assault or discrimination from other individuals, 12% with discrimination in terms of social rights, 9% with private services, 8% with private security abuse, 8% with hate speech, 7% with workplace discrimination, 5% with public services, and 1% with the far right.