Spanish Street Riots, Cheered by Portugal’s Hard Right, Rattle Expats

A surge of far-right rhetoric is moving back and forth across the Iberian border, turning an obscure street clash in southern Spain into a rallying cry for extremists and an anxiety trigger for anyone building a life in Portugal. As Portuguese hard-liner André Ventura showered praise on what he called a “lesson” for migrants, diplomats, civic groups and foreign residents suddenly found themselves asking how safe—and how welcome—they really are.

An applause that echoed from Madrid to Lisbon

At a nationalist convention hosted by Spain’s Vox party, Chega leader André Ventura broke into applause when speakers referenced July’s violence in Torre Pacheco. He told the audience the attacks filled him with “tremendous pride” and warned newcomers that “Europe is watching.” The remarks were quickly clipped for social media, where right-wing influencers celebrated the message and mainstream politicians in Lisbon condemned it as incitement to racial hatred.

Behind the Torre Pacheco riots

The Spanish farming town of Torre Pacheco, Múrcia, erupted after an alleged assault on a 68-year-old local man, reportedly by Moroccan teenagers. Far-right groups—including the online network Deport Them Now—used doctored videos to brand all North Africans as criminals and unleashed calls for a “hunt.” Nights of street rampages followed, with businesses owned by Pakistanis, Senegalese and Romanians smashed as extremists wielded stones, wooden clubs and broken bottles. A reinforced police deployment resulted in nine arrests—five Spaniards and four migrants—on charges ranging from public disorder to hate crimes.

Lisbon’s tightrope: condemn violence, harden laws

Portugal’s centre-left government publicly rebuked Ventura, yet it is simultaneously rolling out the most restrictive migration rules in two decades. The cabinet ended the manifestação de interesse pathway, sped up deportations and backed a longer residency requirement for citizenship. Parliament passed the package in July, but President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa vetoed it and referred parts to the Constitutional Court, arguing that rushed laws risk stigmatizing entire communities.

Hate-crime numbers foreigners should know

Official Portuguese data show 421 hate-crime files in 2024, a 219 % jump since 2020. Spain registered 1 955 complaints last year, with racist and xenophobic incidents topping the list. While overall crime remains low by European standards, analysts at the Council of Europe warn that online disinformation has made Brazilian, Cape-Verdean and South-Asian residents primary targets for harassment in Portugal’s larger cities.

Social media: the new borderless battleground

Investigators from Portugal’s Polícia Judiciária and Spain’s CITCO say extremist memes now cross language lines in seconds thanks to auto-translation tools. Chega activists routinely repost Vox content; Telegram channels run by militia-style cells such as Movimento Armilar Lusitano glorify both Torre Pacheco and earlier attacks in Porto. Authorities have begun treating hate content as a potential terrorism precursor, seizing servers and pushing Meta and X to remove entire clusters of accounts.

The economic paradox: fields rely on the workers under attack

Left-leaning collectives like No Más Precariedad threaten to organize a nationwide farm walkout to prove how deeply Spanish agriculture depends on North-African and Latin-American labour. In Portugal, growers in Ribatejo and Alentejo quietly express similar fears: without seasonal crews from Nepal, India and Guinea-Bissau, the tomato and olive harvests stall. Business federations now lobby Lisbon to lower bureaucratic hurdles even as politicians debate tougher vetting.

Staying safe and informed

Embassies in Lisbon and Madrid have updated travel and relocation advisories, urging foreign residents to report harassment via the SOS Imigrante hotline (808 257 257) and Spain’s Ministry of Interior hate-crime portal. Lawyers remind newcomers that Article 240 of Portugal’s Penal Code criminalizes racist violence with prison terms of up to 8 years—an amendment under review may soon cover online abuse more explicitly.

What to watch next

Portugal’s municipal elections in October and Spain’s Catalan vote in November will test whether anti-immigrant narratives gain further ground. For expatriates weighing a move, the key takeaway is that Portugal still ranks high for personal security and tolerance, yet the political climate is shifting. Monitoring local news, engaging with community organisations and understanding your legal rights remain the best defences against a trend that, for now, shows no sign of fading.