Spanish police said Wednesday they arrested two individuals on hate-crime charges after an alleged assault on a pregnant woman wearing a niqab.
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The incident allegedly too place on Monday evening the heavily pregnant woman was walking with her family (including children) in central Barcelona.
They started shouting insults over the woman’s niqab – a veil covering the face apart from the eyes – Barcelona police said.
“The woman tried to intervene between the aggressors and her partner”, a police spokesperson said.
The woman was wearing a niqab at the time, a strict form of Islamic dress created to cover the whole body and face, with a thin gap for the eyes.
Police say two people approached the family and started insulting them for the way the woman was dressed.
Witnesses stopped the attack and the woman was taken to the hospital, where doctors found no permanent injury to her or her unborn child.
Investigators said the suspects have links to far-right football groups, identified by local media as the Brigadas Blanquiazules, who support the RCD Espanyol football team in Barcelona.
The club banned members of this group from entering its stadium in 2010.
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The number of hate crimes on the grounds of religion rose by 11 per cent a year ago compared to 2014, according to Spain’s interior ministry, with nearly half occurring in the region of Catalonia. If proven, the offence would be considered a hate-crime.
