Amnesty International (AI) considers that last year “few” countries had “the courage to raise their voices against the roar of cannons that silence diplomacy” and appreciates that Spain is part of those few that have “systematically denounced the dismantling of regulatory safeguards.”
In its annual report on compliance with human rights in the world, AI warns that in 2025 a “large number” of crimes under international law were committed, such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and emphasizes that, although “activism and judicial pressure” led some States to restrict or prohibit arms exports to Israel, “irresponsible arms transfers have continued to fuel atrocities.”
In this sense, the NGO recalls that before 2025 some countries, including Spain, had already taken some measures to reduce the supply of weapons to Israel, although “they often limited themselves to not granting new export licenses and continued to supply weapons under old licenses”, but last year there was more progress: Spain approved by law a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel.
Threatened rights and xenophobic violence
Regarding the specific evaluation of the human rights situation in Spain, AI regrets that unaccompanied migrant minors were not “properly” protected and criticizes that at the end of the year only 408 asylum-seeking children had been transferred from the Canary Islands to state facilities in the peninsula following the Supreme Court order that required the Executive to take care of them.
The report condemns the outbreak of xenophobic violence that occurred last summer in Torrepacheco (Murcia) when, after an attack on a 68-year-old neighbor, “anti-rights groups organized ‘immigrant hunts’ against racialized people,” riots that were amplified by racist content on the Internet.
Amnesty also denounces that thousands of evictions continued to be carried out, mostly for economic reasons, while it criticizes that Parliament did not repeal the citizen security law, known as the gag law.
It also criticizes the continued “disproportionate restrictions” on the right to peaceful assembly as well as the excessive use of force against protests in solidarity with the Palestinian people, including acts of civil disobedience such as those that forced the suspension of the last stage of the Vuelta Ciclista upon its arrival in Madrid.
The authorities fail to comply due to the risk of damage
The organization also warns that “neither the government of the Valencian Community nor the central government fulfilled certain commitments” in terms of flood risk prevention and management after the dana that devastated the Valencian province on October 29, 2024 and left 229 fatalities.
Amnesty International also does not forget the 46 women murdered at the hands of their ex-partners in 2025 and warns that many of the crisis centers set up to provide immediate and specialized help to victims of sexual violence “were not fully effective”, since “they did not operate 24 hours a day and neither did they offer comprehensive support or guarantee effective access” to all victims.
He also censures that there was a case pending before the European Court of Human Rights after the Spanish justice system refused to investigate complaints of torture during the Franco regime.
